Court Says Cops Can Pull You Over for No Reason—and Weekend Links

Court Says Cops Can Pull You Over for No Reason—and Weekend Links

You probably didn’t even know about this decision, which was handed down by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals last week, but it affects you, your family, and everyone else you know.

A federal appeals court just ruled that the police have a legal right to stop, search and arrest you for innocent behavior including driving with your hands at the ten-and-two position on the steering wheel at 7:45 p.m., taking a scenic route and having acne.

If this makes no sense to you, if your head just exploded and you feel like going on a rant about federal authority, you’re not alone.  Unfortunately, the courts have decided that the Fourth Amendment means nothing.  The items described above were actually used as justification by U.S. Border Patrol agent Joshua Semmerling to pull over a woman who he passed on the Interstate, 40 miles from the border in Arizona, while driving 60 miles an hour.  It was all just so suspicious.

First, was the driver’s upright posture.  The female driver was sitting up straight with her hands located on the upper part of the steering wheel.  This was viewed as suspicious activity.

So, how should she have been driving?  With one hand on the steering wheel and the other on her phone?

Secondly, the agent claimed that the truck’s tinted windows were suspicious.  It remains unclear how the agent saw driver’s posture through the “suspicious” tint.

When I lived down south, I had tinted windows too—not because I was a criminal, but because it gets unbearably hot in a car down there without them.

Lastly was the truck’s rear license plate — which the agent claims to have observed in his rear-view mirror while traveling at a high rate of speed in the opposite direction.  He claimed that he noticed it was from out-of-state; another suspicious characteristic.

I had no idea it was now “suspicious behavior” to drive out of state.

He did a U-turn and pulled the truck over.  The driver, Cindy Lee Westhoven, showed Semmerling her Arizona driver’s license, and that’s when things started to get even more crazy.

The cop was frightening enough that she became extremely nervous and started to stutter. After he ran her identification and found no warrants, he returned to her truck. She said, “I thought you were going to let me go. Do you think I’m hauling illegal aliens?” That was the wrong thing to say, because the cop then asked to search the car. Westhoven said no. Then he told her she could not leave until backup arrived.

Westhoven refused the search, as is her right.  Semmerling noticed that Westhoven had acne scars, and decided that must mean she is a meth user.  She also had two cell phones visible in the car—surely a sign of criminal behavior.  When he questioned her about where she was coming from and why, Westhoven—understandably nervous under the circumstances—stuttered and paused while answering.  She had been in Douglas, Arizona, doing some shopping at the little artisan shops.  Semmerling found that suspicious as well, since he thought the shopping was better in Tucson.  The agent used a K-9 dog on her truck, and turned up a small amount of personal marijuana.  He arrested Westhoven on the spot.

Obtaining a lawyer, she tried to get the arrest thrown out based on the highly ridiculous circumstances of her no-cause traffic stop.  The court of appeals, however, thought that Semmerling’s unconstitutional actions were just fine.

“Driving stiffly, having tinted windows, slowing down when seeing law enforcement, and driving in an out-of-the-way area may be innocent conduct by themselves,” Judge Scott M. Matheson, Jr., wrote for the appellate panel. “But when taken together along with driving a vehicle with out-of-state plates in a mountainous smuggling corridor 40-45 miles away from the border, we conclude Agent Semmerling had reasonable suspicion Ms. Westhoven was involved in smuggling activity.”

What does this mean for you?  It means that law enforcement can pull you over at any time and search you and your car, for any reason or no reason—you don’t even have to be breaking the law.  No accountability, and no constitutionality.

Weekend links below the jump!

William Teach at Pirate’s Cove compares liberal reactions in Benghazi to those on the “botched” execution of an Oklahoma rapist and killer.  Pretty great post…pretty pathetic liberals.

The Other McCain opines about the Left’s mob rule on college campuses.

Sister Toldjah has a disturbing story about a murderer who was paroled after 23 years of a life sentence…and promptly committed another murder.

Legal Insurrection has a round-up of “uncomfortable learning” just in case you weren’t angry enough at the Left’s complete takeover of higher education in this country.

First Street Journal points out that raising the minimum wage is already costing jobs.

Jammie Wearing Fools has the latest in the Malaysian flight disappearance—guess what?  They arrested some Muslims.

This Ain’t Hell explains why they do what they do—and what they do is amazing.

Enjoy your week, and remember, spy planes near airport computers are bad, mmmkay?

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5 Comments
  • VALman says:

    We can be glad that racial profiling is still illegal. So, there’s that.

  • GWB says:

    Why can’t the folks who sue over this be the ones who *don’t* have a baggie of MJ in their car? This is atrocious – I don’t care *what* all those bits of “evidence” lead you to, there was NO exigent circumstance that would have prevented getting a search warrant. Especially if you have to wait for the drug dog, anyway.

    I won’t write anything concerning what I feel needs to happen, at this point. But, it is not going to end well.

  • Deserttrek says:

    the border patrol is a corrupt agency like ALL federal law enforcement groups. they are not on the borders but harass and delay CITIZENS rather than the hard job of border protection.

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