Front page headline: “Supreme Court: Pennsylvania cops no longer need a warrant to search citizens’ vehicles.”
The article reports: “Previously, citizens could refuse an officer’s request to search a vehicle. In most cases, the officer would then need a warrant — signed by a judge — to conduct the search.
“That’s no longer the case, according to the opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery.”
WATCHDOG: We were dismayed to read the headline and the gist of the early paragraphs because it suggested that the state court had nullified the Fourth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, to wit:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
This is not what the Pennsylvania high court decided. Its Opinion’s opening paragraph states:
“After consideration of relevant federal and state law, we now hold that with respect to a warrantless search of a motor vehicle that is supported by probable cause, Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution affords no greater protection than the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Accordingly, we adopt the federal automobile exception to the warrant requirement, which allows police officers to search a motor vehicle when there is probable cause to do so and does not require any exigency beyond the inherent mobility of a motor vehicle.”
Pennsylvanians still have the same right as those living in all of the other states to refuse to allow police to search their vehicles. Police require court approval to do so except when it is apparent from visual or smell that a violation of law is likely taking place. ALSO SEE ABOUT POLICE PEDESTRIAN STOPS BELOW.
If stopped, a driver has the right to get out of the car and lock the car doors. When the police request the right to search car, the driver can refuse and ask the police if he or she is under arrest. If they are told they are not under arrest, then they can get into their car and drive away. Of course all of this should be done in a respectful manner.
The War on Drugs has done enough to erode the Fourth Amendment without the assistance of the Lancaster Newspapers.
We just wish the public was as concerned about their Fourth Amendment rights as they are about the Second Amendment.
(Police “Stops” Defined) “‘Stops’ refers to the practice of police officers stopping individuals on the street to question them. In general, police may do this to anyone at any time. But unless and until the police officer tells an individual he or she may not leave, a person stopped is free not to answer questions and to leave. As Supreme Court Justice Harlan said in his opinion in Terry [v. Ohio], ordinarily and unless there are specific facts sufficient to justify the officer’s suspicion that a crime is, has been or may about to be committed, the person stopped has a right to ignore the officer’s questions and walk away. But if the individual may not leave, this is called, as Justice Harlan put it, a ‘forcible stop.’
“This is why, when stopped, it is always advisable to ask the police officer politely whether you are free to leave or not. If you are restrained from leaving, you should not resist. But at some point, if the stop is more than brief, you should ask whether you are being arrested. This is because more evidence is required to arrest someone than to stop them for questioning.”
Source: Glasser, Ira, “Stop, Question and Frisk: What the Law Says About Your Rights,” Drug Policy Alliance (New York, NY: May 2011), p. 4.
http://www.drugpolicy.org/sites/default/files/Stop%20and%20Frisk%20Issue…
– See more at: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Crime#Law
