Version
COMMENTARY
ET CETERA
DISPATCHES
LISTS
FEATURES
CORRECTIONS
MAILBAG
REVIEWS NEUNER
OLEAR
RICHARDS
STERNE
MASTHEAD
CONTACT
SUBMIT
SUBSCRIBE ARCHIVES
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
Behind bars for not wearing a seat belt
I guess it's only natural that a group of people who wear graduation robes to work all the time want to be ridiculed -- especially if they know they can't be fired. Yet I am troubled that the highest court in the land continues its decline to laughingstock.
On the heels of the asinine Bush v. Gore ruling (asinine because of the Catch-22s littering the decision, not because I personally disapprove of the victor), the Supreme Court last month ruled that police officers can arrest people for offenses that you can't arrest people for.
Here's the story: Gail Atwater of Lago Vista, Texas, is driving her two children home from a soccer game in her pick-up truck. Something flies out the window, so the kids remove their seat belts to look out the window and see where it went.
An overzealous police officer (of whom Texas seems to have an endless supply) notices this incredible breach of law and pulls Atwater over for not wearing the seat belts. When she protests, he handcuffs her and carts her off to jail, leaving her stunned kids in the care of a family friend. Atwater spends an hour in county lock-up before posting a $310 bond and eventually pays a $50 fine -- the maximum penalty allowed for the offense.
Atwater sued, claiming her Fourt Amendment rights protecting her from unreasonable search and seizure were violated.
We assume that Atwater was not nice to the policeman. We assume her story about removing the belts to look out the window was fabricated. But even so, why would the Supreme Court authorize excessive (ab)use of power for trifles like that?
"We simply cannot conclude that the Fourth Amendment, as originally understood, forbade peace officers to arrest without a warrant for misdemeanors not amounting to or involving breach of the peace," the usually reliable Justice David H. Souter wrote for the majority. He was joined by the usual suspects: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence (I'll Do Whatever Scalia Tells Me) Thomas.
Never mind what was originally understood. I'm all for legal precedent, but when a precedent dates to a different era, when women were slaves to men and blacks were slaves to the writers of the Constitution, it should be overruled. In the 1790s, sheriffs had to have the power to jail people for the 18th century equivalent of not wearing a seat belt, in order to keep the peace.
With something this subtle, and this foreign to the time the Bills of Rights was drafted, the Supreme Court needs to make its own decisions responsibly, not fall into this that's-not-what-Jefferson-intended trap.
"But we have traditionally recognized that a responsible Fourth Amendment balance is not well served by standards requiring sensitive, case-by-case determinations of government need, lest every discretionary judgment in the field be converted into an occasion for constitutional review," Souter wrote.
Translation: we don't want to be responsible for doing the right thing, so we'll fellate our Founding Fathers and move on.
On one hand, Souter is perhaps right. As the Constitution is written, Atwater's arrest might not violate the Fourth Amendment. But does anyone not currently employed in law enforcement for the State of Texas want it to be legal to be arrested for not wearing a seat belt, or jaywalking, or, hopping a subway turnstile?
The other four Supreme Court Justices recognized the problem.
"Justifying a full arrest by the same quantum of evidence that justifies a traffic stop -- even though the offender cannot ultimately be imprisoned for her conduct -- defies any sense of proportionality and is in serious tension with the Fourth Amendment's proscription of unreasonable seizures," Reagan appointee Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the minority.
She argued that police should not have "constitutional carte blanche" to make arrests like Atwater's. If they do, she said, they should be "able to point to specific and articulable facts" to justify their actions.
Most troubling is the relative quiet with which the American people have accepted this ruling. Jesse Jackson and other black leaders should be protesting this vehemently, because the decision "carries with it grave potential for abuse," as O'Connor put it.
"The recent debate over racial profiling demonstrates all too clearly," she said, "a relatively minor traffic infraction may often serve as an excuse for stopping and harassing an individual."
You can extropolate the damage this could do:
--Why did you handcuff and book this long-haired man?--He didn't wait for the WALK sign. --Why did you bring these Latino men to jail?
--They were gathering at a street corner. Looked like trouble. --Why did you arrest all 350 black people in Broward County the day before Election Day?
--They weren't wearing seat belts. You get the idea. If we can arrest a soccer mom for not fastening a seat belt, we should be able to remove a Supreme Court Justice for bad judgment.
By Greg Olear
052900