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Supreme Court Rules Extending Traffic Stop For Dog Sniff Unconstitutional
bmxeroh writes: The Supreme Court ruled today (PDF) that a police officer may not extend a traffic stop beyond the time needed to complete the tasks related to that stop for the purposes of allowing a trained dog to sniff for drugs. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority (6-3) that police authority "ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction are — or reasonably should have been — completed." The case, Rodriguez v. United States, 13-9972, all started with Rodriguez was stopped in Nebraska for driving out of his lane. After he was given the ticket for that infraction, he was made to wait an additional seven to eight minutes for a drug dog to arrive which promptly alerted to the presence of drugs in the car. Upon search, the officers found a small bag of methamphetamine in his possession.
again
To be honest, I figured that it /had/ to be a bad ruling and spent a while trying to understand why it was wrong, just because of how they've been lately. Perhaps I'm just paranoid.
The obvious problem is that we pay them so much more for drug busts than for traffic citations.
Why did this get to be a post on slashdot?
n00b... :p
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Your rights on line is a catch all for .. well, your legal rights.
Maybe you don't care, but many of us actually do care that law enforcement has been shitting on the Constitution for years and deciding the law is what they say it is.
Police offices these days are crooks who reinterpret the law as they choose. And it's about time it became acknowledged that it's not how it is supposed to be. Police who are doing these things should be fired without a pension, and criminally charged.
You may not give a shit about your 4th amendment rights, but other people do.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Today's nerds do more meth than they used to. In fairness, the hours we're being pressured to work do require some form of amphetamines.
The older, more refined nerd prefers Adderall.
Stuff that matters
Because, know your rights.
If there are any Grammar 'experts' out there, could someone tell me if the following sentence is incorrect or correct?
The case, Rodriguez v. United States, 13-9972, all started with Rodriguez was stopped in Nebraska for driving out of his lane.
The dissenters' statements agree in principle with the majority but cite reasons that the majority's opinion is in error in this case, i.e. that there was reasonable cause to call in the dog and that the delay was not excessive.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
You're a fucking idiot. Did you know that these dogs can be trained to alert on cash? You know, the cash you might have in the car because you just sold your motorcycle like I did last October. Do you know what happens when the cops find cash? They steal it from you under the pretense that you MIGHT have been involved in a drug transaction or some other nefarious crime. Civil Forfeiture Laws are a thing and this ruling will help protect the innocent from those who would police for profit. Sit. Stay. Moron. P.
I have to agree with the supreme court on principal and we really do have to stand up for our rights lest we loose them. But I would have though the cops had a responsibility to do the search if they suspected an additional crime was being committed. Possibly they were suspicious only due to Mr. Rodriguez's skin color or last name, which clearly shouldn't be permitted. But it they have any other reasonable suspicion that he had drugs why shouldn't they be allowed to investigate. Especially if it's a 7-8 minute process. An hour is unreasonable, but come on, a quick, non-disruptive check seems reasonable.
We do follow a lot of SCOTUS on Slashdot, so I guess the post matches. I'm kind of with the dissent on this if just because the ambiguity of authority this creates. It doesn't look like he was under the influence at the time, but the term "driving out of his lane" does kind of give reasonable cause for drug use, but maybe thats profiling. The article points out that dog searches are legal and its ok to arrest people traffic violations where the search could of been carried out.
I mean think about it, apparently the problem is the officer finished his job then asked the defendant to wait for a second search. If the officer had started a 15 minute search after placing the defendant in his car to ensure he was safe would that have made this incident ok? Searches are legal, but waiting for backup to conduct a search isn't?
Momento Mori
In other news all police cars will now contain drug sniffing dogs.
...in a pretty blatant violation of the 4th. Pretty scary even though the case was won.
IANAL but from what I gather is basically the dissent is that the violation of the 4th isn't that *unreasonable* so it's ok.
(not to mention drug dogs are complete BS anyway)
I am glad to hear that the court ruled this way. My brother who is white was driving home from college with two of his black friends. They were pulled over and made to wait on the side of the highway while the county sheriff called for the narcotics dog. After several hours of waiting, and repeated passes of the dog on the car and my brother and his friends, they were all released with a broken tail light ticket.
Such over extension of a traffic stop mounts to a fishing expedition where cops/sheriffs hope to catch someone "in the act". In my brother's case, I guess they didn't like his friends since they kept pulling him aside to ask "how do you know these two?" Let's keep policing proper, people.
I don't care if it's 30 additional seconds to get the dogs there. Unless they SAW drugs on the front seat, they had NO reason to call in the dogs. The dogs are consistently abused to intimidate people and find "evidence" of crimes that didn't actually happen. Please see civil forfeiture laws. Just because they happened to be right in this case doesn't mean they should be given carte blanche to abuse everyone. Please don't give these assholes any benefit of the doubt. It has been proven over and over again that they WILL steal from you. ~P~
If they have reasonable suspicion, the police have a legal recourse, it's called a "warrant". If they have a "gut feeling" they can go fuck themselves.
It's time we repeal the Fourth Amendment. Police need to be able to find all the criminals using any means necessary. Won't someone please think of the children!!
(And if you post arguments against this proposal, I'll push to repeal the First Amendment as well)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Or they can be trained to alert on whatever signal their handler wants to give them. Hell, their dogs, they want to please their handler.
Cheap storage VM.
We need to be able to station soldiers in people's houses to prevent crime in the first place.
Watching some of the videos people made of traffic stops and reading the stories you can tell that some of the dogs are trained to alert by their handler, not by what they sniff out on a search. Since that becomes probable cause they can do whatever they want. Enter civil forfeiture in all it's government sanctioned plundering.
I agree with the other comments that crooked police departments will stretch out the citation until another car with a dog just happens to be driving by the stop and decides to see what's going on. This doesn't change anything in those circumstances.
For all those who are innocent and falsely arrested because of these situations it will cost time and money to fight it and then to have the arrest sealed. For those who are doing illegal things it's going to be held up in court in some way or fashion.
The only way this would matter would be to put some teeth (pun kind of intended) into those situations where innocent people are impacted. Remove the arrest record, compensate for the false arrest, removal of the dog from the program, and sanctions for the arresting officers. Yeah right.
Note that I call out removing the arrest record or sealing it because just having been arrested can prevent people from getting jobs. Doesn't matter if it was a false arrest or not - it shows up. Especially if the police decide to make it a felony arrest because you know - drugs.
How is the search justified? Why, because he left his lane briefly? To search, you need either a warrant, something needs to be in plain view, or you have to have been arrested. Since he was not under arrest at the time and I really doubt the police got a warrant what was the legal justification for the search?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
The handler doesn't even need to signal the dog. The handler might just want to search the car, and the dog picks up on unconscious cues, and alerts.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Or they can be trained to alert on whatever signal their handler wants to give them. Hell, they are dogs, they want to please their handler.
That sentence was valid with "their": "Hell, the handlers dogs, they want to please their handler."
Police who are doing these things should be fired without a pension, and criminally charged.
I've been saying this for years, more or less. When a civil servant, from the town dog catcher to president of the US, breaks a law, or writes a law they should be held accountable.
In the case of a police officer when they interpret the law wrong there should be repercussions. When a politician sponsors a bill and its found unconstitutional, there should be repercussions. When a DA files charges against someone and loses, there should be repercussions.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Just because the supreme court says you cant, doesnt mean departments wont push the envelope to see if they can challenge it, and for how long. Most minorities arrested for example never see a courtroom, but instead are strong-armed. Typically a prosecutor meets with the accused, threatens them with a dozen or so charges from failure to yield to a stop sign to improper socks after labour day and throws a random double digit integer of years in a prison described like Auschwitz. Once the accused is terrified into pleading guilty for a "reduced sentence" the prosecutor packs up their briefcase and bellies up to the local pub assured he will get to keep his job. Prosecutors that are fair and pursue lenient charges tend to prevent the DA and Judges from getting re-elected, and will eventually get shown the door.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Civil Forfeiture Laws are a thing
I agree, along with any other abstract idea or tangible object you can name. The fact that they're all things tells us a lot about them. Namely, that they're nouns.
I'd be fearing for my life
Police offices these days are crooks who reinterpret the law as they choose.
Generalize much?
A long time ago we asked to not be burdened with the task of policing ourselves. The opposite extreme is the Gestapo, and we've been inching closer ever since.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Today's nerds do more meth than they used to. In fairness, the hours we're being pressured to work do require some form of amphetamines.
The older, more refined nerd prefers Adderall.
The even older, even more refined nerds prefer a good night's sleep. And alcohol.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
(not to mention drug dogs are complete BS anyway)
OK, I'll bite. Why are drug dogs "complete BS"? Dogs are demonstrably useful and effective in sniffing out all sorts of items. They are a well established tool in our legal system and for good reason. Clearly there was no probable cause to use a drug dog for a search in this case. That does not make drug sniffing dogs "complete BS".
Seriously? You've got a 6 digit UID but you don't know that slashdot has been dealing with rights like this since it was chips & dips.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
It doesn't look like he was under the influence at the time, but the term "driving out of his lane" does kind of give reasonable cause for drug use, but maybe thats profiling.
The problem with this logic is that it fails the "prior probability" test.
Suppose a policeman searches and finds the suspect carrying a large amount of cash, say $4000. That's consistent with a (supposed) drug purchase, so the cash can be confiscated under asset forfeiture laws (assets used in the commission of a crime).
Suppose a policeman notes a youtube video of a chemistry experiment showing a balance scale, some beakers, and jars of chemicals. Those are consistent with "meth lab", so the policeman can search and confiscate all the equipment in the poster's house (this has happened).
The problem with each of these, and your position, is that there is significant prior probability that the behaviour in question is *not* indicative of criminal activity. You are reversing the conditional probabilities.
To put it in words, you are equating "probability of driving out-of-lane, given that he's on drugs" (quite high), with "probability that he's using drugs, given out-of-lane driving" (actually, quite low).
People temporarily drive out-of-lane a great deal to avoid animals and small obstacles, and people temporarily drive out-of-lane because they're distracted. The number of people out-of-lane because they're on drugs is vanishingly small.
Taken to extremes (and we know the police will do this), pretty-much *any* behaviour can be considered consistent with drug use.
In the case of the home lab above, it doesn't matter that the poster is missing key components, nor that he only has some of the ingredients. "Meth makers use glassware, he's got glassware, therefore he's a meth maker".
You see where this leads?
If a policeman observes a crime, take the appropriate action - that's fine. If he *observes* another crime while dealing with it, that's fine too.
But that's not a justification to rummage around in a person's rights just to see what can be pinned on the suspect.
If he doesn't observe a crime, he shouldn't go looking for one.
But it they have any other reasonable suspicion that he had drugs why shouldn't they be allowed to investigate
Because the point is that they don't have reasonable suspicion. Reasonable suspicion is required for detention and search. It doesn't matter how long it takes. The "alert" by the dog is their reasonable suspicion. The police want to unlawfully detain someone until they can get a dog there, for no reason other than "I don't have anything better to do, let's see if we find something."
In the case of a police officer when they interpret the law wrong there should be repercussions.
Agreed.
When a politician sponsors a bill and its found unconstitutional, there should be repercussions. When a DA files charges against someone and loses, there should be repercussions.
There already are repercussions. These are elected positions, no? You and your neighbours can decide to not vote for these people come next election. What's that? It's hard to remove corrupt public officials from office? Yeah, I'm well aware of this. Doesn't mean it's not, at least theoretically, possible. Yes, it will take lots of work, but then this is your country. And mine too. Hopefully we will eventually get enough critical mass to remove them. I just hope we can do it before they manage to completely shred what's left of the Constitution.
Because if we put everyone who uses drugs in jail then we can finally live in a crime free utopia. Hurray for cops who break the law in order to catch low level infractions. Then the only degenerates we'll have left are those who vote to have a police state in order to get rid of other degenerates.
The guy was clearly driving while hispanic, with another count of driving while poor, so that's clearly suspicious cause for a search.
They'll find a way around this. Don't think anything has changed.
The dogs are consistently abused
Please cite some actual examples of police dogs being constantly abused. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Just out of curiosity, did that happen to you? And if your cash was seized, was it returned?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
http://nevergetbusted.com/nevergetbusted-tips/university-study-tricked-certified-police-dogs-to-false-alert-200-times/
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=40028
http://www.wayne-county-forfeiture.com/content/drug-dogs-and-false-alerts-police-lie-and-dogs-wont-sniff-out-perjury
I believe that JustNiz is the slashdot handle of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. After a long hard day of writing a majority decision protecting our 4th Amendment rights, she decided to relax by reading some good 'ol nerdy slashdot stories.
Unfortunately instead of escape, she ran into this story, which understandably griefed her a bit. Now she has to put up with your meany comments about her not caring about rights.
There already are repercussions. These are elected positions, no?
They are elected positions but with the system as it currently stands rarely do these people get removed from office. Voters simply don't care as long as they get their bread and circuses. An with 2, 4, and 6 year election cycles there are still to much time between elections for a rogue politician to inflicted damage that can take years to undo.
When a senator or house member sponsors and pushes through a bill that is found to be unconstitutional they lose their seat, right then, right there. Those that actually voted for the bill are fined a nice lump sum, 10K at least. If it is found that they sponsored or voted for a bill for personal gain, prison time.
With the prospects of losing a their seat, being fined, or jail time these "representatives" will pay a hell of lot more attention to what they sponsor and vote for. There will a lot less or "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" in Washington.
Once a seat is lost, it will stay lost till the next election cycle. The state or district that elected that member loses that vote in congress. Punishment for electing the idiot in the first place.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Oh the ignorance. People like you are why we still have a war on drugs and all of the pain, death, and destruction that comes with it.
You may not give a shit about your 4th amendment rights, but other people do.
Dogs don't, and that's who the police need to get permission from to violate that right.
Anyone want a bet this will just help to justify raising our taxes to make all cops K9 units?
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Yo Nerds -- you really need to at least glance at the decision before you all start condemning/praising the decision. In reality, this case is a big nothing-burger and does nothing to promote civil rights in America. The entire "meat" of the decision is in this paragraph:
What does this mean? It means that the officer was honest/stupid enough to say during the original trial that he had no "individualized suspicion" about this particular vehicle or this particular defendant. All the cop had to do was "articulate" an "individualized suspicion" about why he wanted to search the car with a drug-sniffing dog, and the whole case would have turned out differently. As it is, the case just gets remanded back to the lower court to look into the issue some more. Basically, the Supreme Court is inviting the 8th Circuit to come back with a finding that the cop probably had a reason to suspect drugs, and therefore everything was fine. This is anything but a sweeping victory for civil rights.
I'm too lazy to add anchor tags, but here are some references for you.
The UCDavis study is the best description of this -- when actually tested in scenarios designed to expose false positive results, that's EXACTLY what happened -- the dogs alerted in every place they shouldn't have and where the handler was given cues that the dogs would alert, the dogs were MORE likely to alert.
This is a huge problem with using dogs. It's not that dogs aren't good at sniff detection, its that dogs are so inclined to please their handlers that even when the handlers aren't purposefully lying they are still signaling their dogs that they should find something. So how do you separate out the dog actually sniffing out drugs versus the experienced profiling of the handler who expects their target to have drugs, gets a false alert from the dog and then discovers drugs from a hand search?
I don't think we CAN know if it was a legitimate signal from the dog or just the officer's experience that $Socialtype or $MinorityMember is very likely to have drugs.
It gets much, much worse if you take away the assumption that the cops/handler are 100% honest all the time. Do you really think that there isn't even some deliberate dishonesty with dogs? The worst outcome for the cops has been "well, the dog knows you had something in here but since I didn't find anything I'll let you go". The best outcome for the cops is that they get away with an illegal search that results in an arrest and conviction based on a dog's behavior that is beyond question, because, you know, dogs are so good at sniffing and its "a well established tool in our legal system and for good reason."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/w...
http://www.cato.org/blog/cleve...
I have to agree with the supreme court on principal and we really do have to stand up for our rights lest we loose them. But I would have though the cops had a responsibility to do the search if they suspected an additional crime was being committed. Possibly they were suspicious only due to Mr. Rodriguez's skin color or last name, which clearly shouldn't be permitted. But it they have any other reasonable suspicion that he had drugs why shouldn't they be allowed to investigate. Especially if it's a 7-8 minute process. An hour is unreasonable, but come on, a quick, non-disruptive check seems reasonable.
If the police have reasonable suspicion (i.e., based on some legitimate evidence), then this ruling doesn't apply. They can detain the guy for a few minutes to get the dog. This ruling only applies to where the police have no reasonable suspicion and want to detain him anyway. The Fourth Amendment says they don't get to do that.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
And if you think Washington's bad, State politics can be even worse. In NY, we recently had a budget vote with some items that were extremely unpopular. Democrat after Democrat stood up saying how awful these provisions were - just before voting FOR the budget "with a heavy heart." They all used the exact same phrase. It was clearly a "the governor is leaning heavily on us politically because he wants this passed RIGHT NOW so we can't go against him no matter what our reservations." Only one Democrat went against the flow and I fully expect him to face political reprisals. (The Republicans opposed the budget, but that was to be expected.) And that's just scratching the surface.
A lot of people claim that more power to the states will solve all of the problems, but it just moves many problems down a level and can make it even harder to bring these issues to light than with the Federal government. Don't even get me started on Local governments. Forget turtles, it's dirty politics all the way down.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Bah, you kids and your "sleep." If becoming a parent taught be anything, it's that it is amazing how little sleep you can operate on.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
>> You and your neighbours can decide to not vote for these people come next election.
Like that would make a differnece. Its not like we get a chance to vote for anyone who would actually be really better. Basically the current system ensures that to even get a chance to stand for election you already have to have sold out big time. Therefore the only choice voters ever get is clown A or clown B, and theres even significant evidence that votes don't actually count as much as you'd think to decide even that.
>> When a senator or house member sponsors and pushes through a bill that is found to be unconstitutional they lose their seat, right then, right there. Those that actually voted for the bill are fined a nice lump sum, 10K at least. If it is found that they sponsored or voted for a bill for personal gain, prison time.
Nice. When is the last time this actually happened? I'm genuinely asking, since it seems to me there's been a *lot* of bills/laws passed that are actually unconstituional, and apparently resulted in zero reprocussions.
So one party gets 5 Justices in the bag, and imprisons the entire opposition in one swell foop? Nice. Now they can impeach the other 4 Justices w/o opposition, and we become a one-party state. Well done, sir.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Even a quick search violates your privacy rights. The question is what exactly is "reasonable suspicion". It can't just be a hunch, they have to have some tangible evidence for that.
Why repeal a law you can just ignore? The only reason this made it to the Supreme Court is that the officer acknowledged he held the suspect longer than necessary. Next time he'll take a little more time writing the ticket. This won't change until citizens are empowered to arrest police officers.
I do not block ads. I do block third party scripts.
"he was made to wait an additional seven to eight minutes for a drug dog to arrive which promptly alerted to the presence of drugs in the car. Upon search, the officers found"
WTF? "which promptly alerted to the presence of drugs". Which promptly alerted WHAT or WHOM? Fucking idiots.
"Upon search, the officers found".
WTF? Illiterate American cretins.
We are already a one party system, people just don't want to accept it. Democrat, Republican, it really doesn't matter. With no checks and balances in place on individual members one group will be more than happy to trample our rights.
Republicans, our rights to free speech, reasonable search and seizure, and a womans rights to her own body. Democrats it would be our rights to bare arms, or arm bears, and probably freedom from/to religion.
Same song, same dance, different tune. An I'm not even sure about the tune. Everytime I see a politician the theme song from the Benny Hill Show starts running through my head.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Nice. When is the last time this actually happened? I'm genuinely asking, since it seems to me there's been a *lot* of bills/laws passed that are actually unconstituional, and apparently resulted in zero reprocussions.
It has never happened, and never will happen as long as the ones that make the rules, also sit in judgement of themselves. For something like this to happen it would have to be put forth by a constitutional amendment put in place by the states at a constitutional convention. For it to be effective all the penalties and fines would have to be automatic, without appeal, or trial.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
So you think that dogs that have been mis-trained into being incorrect about detecting something are ... being abused? What, their self esteem will end up really low, and that's abuse, to you? What are you talkign about?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Or they can be trained to alert on whatever signal their handler wants to give them. Hell, they are dogs, they want to please their handler.
That sentence was valid with "their": "Hell, the handlers dogs, they want to please their handler."
" handler's ", or perhaps " handlers' " but that is less likely as the final "handler" is not plural.
The dogs are consistently abused
Please cite some actual examples of police dogs being constantly abused. You have no idea what you're talking about.
I think "The doges are used in away to abuse the 'suspects'." was closer to what was meant, rather than that the dogs were being mistreated. There are numerous studdies to suggest that the potential for abuse exists:
http://nevergetbusted.com/neve...
http://www.informationliberati...
http://www.wayne-county-forfei...
This was *already* the law, from a Supreme Court Case in 2005. Some of the lower courts had just messed it up by not following it--basically saying that a couple of minutes is okay and doesn't really count.
SCOTUS just benchslapped them, although politely. This is one of those "No, we actually meant what we said, now stop being so pro-law-enforcement that you read this out of the law. Yes. They're criminals. But there's still a Constitution, and you have to follow it."
ok but
That's what the dog said.
Have gnu, will travel.
Alcohol-sniffing dogs probably make Judge Ginsburg nervous:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.c...
Table-ized A.I.
If anyone here doubts that a dog handler can intentionally or unintentionally cause a drug-sniffing dog to falsely alert, they need to look up the case of a horse named "Clever Hans". This was a horse that was able to solve simple arithmetic problems by stamping his hoof the correct number of times. The trick was that the horse never solved any problems. He was watching the questioner to see when he/she was satisfied with the number of hoof-stamps.
...when a dog trained and employed by the state can exchange your freedom, for 2 minutes of play time with his chew toy.
Who slipped reason juice in the SCOTUS water cooler this week?
Scalia and Thomas need to drink more.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
That's a paltry cover for the fact that the GP exposed your proposed system as being objectively worse than what we have currently.
In my town, if you get pulled over and you live there or are known to the officer, you get your ticket and are on your way.
If you are from out of town, or unknown, you get the dog every single time.
Wife works there. I get all the good dirt.
I bet we would win back more civil rights if even half of these cases that went to the supreme court were ones where they guy whose rights were violated was not ACTUALLY GUILTY of a FELONY.
I mean I've got a lot more sympathy for a guy who was pulled over, run through the dog test for an hour and not found to have any drugs, then a guy who actually did have drugs.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Oh bull pussy. Any time we've got some controversial topic at-hand, you've had a job doing it. I don't care how old you might claim you are, but there's no way anyone has had as many jobs as you have.
There must have been an underlying reason for calling a dog & handler out, and in this case that suspicion was justified as drugs were found.
I am no judge, but the way I see it is this:
* if no drugs were found then the guy maybe has a case - waste of his time.
* if drugs were found then he has no case - the officer was correct and prevented illegal drugs going around, did his job.
If we apply this decision wider, everyone who has waited (a LOT longer than 8 minutes) at an airport because of everyone being under suspicion all the time every time.... where is the Supreme Court on that one?
One standard of law, applied consistently every time for every case. Its a dream, but we can have a dream, right? (MLK)
In the case of a police officer when they interpret the law wrong there should be repercussions.
Agreed.
When a politician sponsors a bill and its found unconstitutional, there should be repercussions. When a DA files charges against someone and loses, there should be repercussions.
There already are repercussions. These are elected positions, no? You and your neighbours can decide to not vote for these people come next election. What's that? It's hard to remove corrupt public officials from office? Yeah, I'm well aware of this. Doesn't mean it's not, at least theoretically, possible. Yes, it will take lots of work, but then this is your country. And mine too. Hopefully we will eventually get enough critical mass to remove them. I just hope we can do it before they manage to completely shred what's left of the Constitution.
Bullshit there are repercussions. The voters actually vote for the corrupt, anti-constitutional politicians specifically BECAUSE they intend to violate the constitution. Diane Fiendstien has been trying to wipe out the 2nd Amendment for FOURTY YEARS and is still in office, simply because liberal Commifornians want to violate the rights of others.
Go ask your local liberal hippie if it thinks you should be allowed to own a gun. The answer is "no". And it votes that way.
Bah, you kids and your "sleep." If becoming a parent taught be anything, it's that it is amazing how little sleep you can operate on.
If becoming an alcoholic taught me anything, it's that it is amazing how little sleep you can operate on. And how good greasy food can taste.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Pretty much any lawyer can choose to run for a post like County Attorney. It will be an arduous process, but it shouldn't be too expensive. It isn't that hard to run for relatively local offices (often including state legislator).
The electorate generally gets the local elected officials it wants.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
>> Pretty much any lawyer can choose to run for a post like County Attorney
Exactly. Do you REALLY think the type of people that become lawyers in the first place are also those that are naturally the least scheming and devious and most altruistic? I for one don't, yet as you say, those are the ones most well-placed to run.
You seem to be trying to subvert democracy. (Down, Clippy!) You're proposing penalties for sponsoring or voting for a bill that might possibly be held unconstitutional, which would allow the Supreme Court to play kingmaker in Congress, violating the separation of powers idea. It's not always clear whether a bill is unconstitutional or not, and you're kicking people out of Congress for making what could well be an honest mistake.
How are you going to find that legislators supported a bill "for personal gain"? Hold trials for half of Congress every week? Should legislators recuse themselves on anything that affects their personal life? That can distort votes. If Joe votes for a bill that is generally good for people and incidentally good for him, do we lead him off in handcuffs?
You're proposing to establish a situation where the important thing in Congressional action is not the merit of the bills but whether somebody's likely to get heavily penalized by a third party. This third party therefore becomes the arbiter of legislation. This is not, repeat not, what you should want.
The proper thing for legislators to do is to vote freely and explain things to their constituents at election time. If you don't like the decisions of the voters, tough. The voters make a lot of decisions I think bad. However, the choice is between having the voters enforce their will or having some non-elected branch of government override the will of the voters. Democracy sucks, but I haven't seen a better system of government.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
as are suspicious activities. In police states, such as the U.S.,objections are enough to provoke probable cause.
I'm not aware that there's a specific type of people that becomes lawyers. The ones I've known personally have been much like everybody else, just with law degrees and a union card.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes