Pubdate: Sun, 13 May 2001 Source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times (TX) Copyright: 2001 Corpus Christi Caller-Times Contact: http://www.caller.com/commcentral/email_ed.htm Website: http://www.caller.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/872 Author Dan K. Thomasson Note: Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of Scripps Howard News Service. BAD RULING ENDANGERS LIBERTIES The Supreme Court's recent decision permitting misdemeanor arrests without a warrant is among the scarier to emerge. Nearly every American needs to take notice of the 5-4 ruling that resulted from the jailing of a soccer mom, lest they become similar victims of extraordinarily bad judgment - if not worse -on the part of local police. The court, in essence, said that anyone can be stopped for a minor infraction - from an illegal left turn to littering - and be summarily arrested, searched and hauled off to jail in shackles. The discretion this gives often poorly trained, underpaid and sometimes corrupt police officers is astounding. If that seems a bit overstated, look at the case that produced this decision. Soccer Mom Jailed Gail Atwater, a young mother, picked up her children after soccer practice and was driving them home when she was stopped by a Lago Vista, Texas, police officer. She was ordered from her pickup truck on a seat-belt violation, handcuffed in front of the small children and driven to jail. It was, to paraphrase Justice David Souter who wrote the majority opinion, a humiliating experience. Atwater pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor and paid a $50 fine. Then she and her husband, Dr. Michael Haas, sued the county, ultimately producing the court's very bad ruling. The officer certainly was correct to stop Atwater to insist that she buckle up herself and the youngsters and, for that matter, to give her a ticket for not having done so and a warning about a second violation. But this policeman displayed what even Souter acknowledged was "extremely poor judgment." Nevertheless, the justice, who normally votes with the court's liberal minority, said that while all this was embarrassing and inconvenient to Atwater, it wasn't so bad as to violate the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable search and seizure. Souter, joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, said that the court didn't want to turn every discretionary decision by police in the field into a constitutional question. Bad Decision In Cincinnati Police failure to pass the judgment test has been demonstrated again and again recently, from clear evidence of racial profiling to the shooting death of an unarmed African-American man that set off riots in Cincinnati. He had been wanted only for traffic violations. But increasing public vulnerability to poor police procedures is not the only serious problem with this ruling. Because the courts already had established the right of police to conduct searches once an arrest is made, it gives officers new license to stop anyone on any minor pretext and conduct a fishing expedition to find something more serious or merely to harass them. The pre-civil-rights days in the South were notorious for this. The potential for abuse in this practice is enormous and legal scholars from the liberal end of the spectrum to the conservative have been expressing concern. The vast majority of law officers are responsible and honest, and one hopes that recent history has made their superiors more sensitive to the need for improved training and supervision. One bad call, however, can lead to horrendous consequences, as was true in Cincinnati. The court has made it easier for a broken taillight or a failure to make a turn signal or any of a dozen other minor infractions to become an excuse for something far more sinister. Eliminating the practice of racial profiling will become more difficult under the court ruling. Most Americans are law-abiding, but they do make mistakes. That's why the law recognizes that some infractions are greater than others and require other measures. The court has blurred that distinction. Lago Vista authorities conceded that they aren't in the business of arresting mothers who are picking up their children. But that's exactly what they did, and because they did, all Americans are a lot more at the mercy of bad judgment or something worse. - --- MAP posted-by: Andrew