A new rationale for a pretextual roadblock in Clinch County, Georgia: seatbelts. The court found that the plaintiff did not satisfy her burden under Edmond, never citing Heck even though the plaintiff was convicted in state court. Scruggs v. Lee, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75821 (M.D. Ga. September 30, 2006):
The roadblock was being operated in conjunction with a “Click-It-or Ticket” Campaign conducted by the Clinch County Sheriff’s Office. In addition to the Clinch County Sheriff’s Department deputies who were present, law enforcement officials from the Georgia Department of Corrections and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources were assisting with the roadblock. There were also canine units at the scene which were being used to detect for illegal drugs.
Evaluating the stop under City of Indianapolis v. Edmond:
Scruggs relies on the number of canine units present as well as his claim that a drug dog was presented at his car before he even had a chance to provide his driver’s license to support his claim that the primary purpose of the roadblock was to detect evidence of criminal wrongdoing. However, even accepting these allegations as true, the Court finds that they are insufficient to create a jury issue on the question of whether the primary purpose of the roadblock was legitimate, i.e., for the purpose of promoting safety on the highways, or not legitimate, i.e, for the purpose of detecting evidence of criminal wrongdoing. Each of the officers deposed stated that the primary purpose of the roadblock was to check for seat belt violations. Although each also added that he was also checking for other evidence of illegal activity, this adds nothing to the equation–an on-duty police officer is always checking for evidence of illegal activity. Moreover the presence of three police dogs, one of which may have been brought to the car before Scruggs produced his license is insufficient to show that the primary purpose was to obtain evidence of general criminal wrongdoing. Therefore, the Court finds that the stop of Scruggs’ vehicle was not unlawful but was made pursuant to a valid highway roadblock.
Comment: This case needs to be appealed. The fact a dog was on the car before the driver’s license was out was sufficient to me to state a claim for relief and was a sufficient ground to have appealed in the state court system. Because of Heck limitations, however, being in federal court is a poor forum.
Strip search for possession of marijuana charge was factually justified on the totality because the small quantity in the vehicle could have led to a small quantity on the person, so MSJ granted. Hartline v. Gallo, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75849 (E.D. N.Y. September 30, 2006).
PC was found from defendant meeting a truck that was caught coming through Customs with drugs. The truck was allowed to go on to its meeting place, and surveillance was set up. Meeting the truck after driving so long was PC. United States v. Lam, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75869 (W.D. N.Y. May 23, 2006):
The commonsense adage “birds of [a] feather flock together,” applies to the instant facts. At the point Tran was arrested, the agents knew the SUV had been driven a long distance for the purpose of taking delivery, as a prearranged place and time, of a large amount of smuggled marijuana. Whether Tran was, in fact, an active and knowing coconspirator is not the issue on the instant motion; rather, the question is whether the agents had probable cause to believe Tran was involved in the underlying criminality. Based on the totality of the undisputed facts leading to her arrest, there was nothing to suggest that Tran was merely an innocent visitor to the area who had made a bad choice of traveling companions. Accordingly, the Government has fully satisfied its burden to establish that Tran’s warrantless arrest was based upon probable cause. United States v. Pena, 961 F.2d 333, 338 (2d Cir. 1992).
"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't." —Me
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well." –Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others)
“I am still learning.” —Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)).
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848)
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced." —Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984).
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence." —Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961).
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987).
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today." — Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting).
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property." —Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765)
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment." —United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth." —Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable." —Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987)
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected." —Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967)
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” —United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)
“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.” —United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989)
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need." —Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Let it Bleed (album, 1969)
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp]
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.” – John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper
"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime." —Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
