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Supreme Court Cuts Back Officers? Searches of Vehicles

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Supreme Court Cuts Back Officers? Searches of Vehicles By ADAM LIPTAK- NY Times Published: April 21, 2009 WASHINGTON ? The Supreme Court on Tuesday significantly cut back the ability of the police to search the cars of people they arrest. Police officers have for a generation understood themselves to be free to search vehicles based on nothing more than the fact that they had just arrested an occupant. That principle, Justice John Paul Stevens acknowledged in his majority opinion, ?has been widely taught in police academies? and ?law enforcement officers have relied on the rule in conducting vehicle searches during the past 28 years.? The majority replaced that bright-line rule with a more nuanced one, and law enforcement officials greeted it with dismay...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on April 23, 2009 (boomark / email).