W.D.Ark.: Whether windshield was cracked enough to be a violation of traffic laws doesn’t matter, it was still cracked which was enough for a stop

Defendant was stopped because of a crack in the windshield. He argued it wasn’t sufficiently cracked to be a violation of law. The point is, however, that the stop was at least justified by the crack. “To summarize, Officer Johnson conducted a lawful traffic stop of Mr. Foster’s vehicle for having a cracked windshield, and even if Officer Johnson was mistaken in believing that Mr. Foster’s windshield violated Arkansas law, he was justified in asking Mr. Foster and his female passenger for identification. Simply put, at no point during the March 5, 2019 traffic stop was Mr. Foster subjected to an unconstitutional seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” The stop revealed defendant had a parole search waiver, and that led to the car being searched finding a firearm. United States v. Foster, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161140 (W.D. Ark. Sept. 20, 2019).*

Defendant is a DART transit officer who arrested plaintiff for an objectively unreasonable reason without probable cause and a jury will decide. Adelman v. Branch, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 28508 (5th Cir. Sept. 20, 2019).*

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