Do you, as a passenger in a stopped vehicle, have a right to get out and walk away? Or have you been "seized" by police -- therefore bringing into play a number of rights under the Bill of Rights?

Most people sitting in the passenger seat of a car that has been stopped by a police officer do not feel free to open the door and leave. Neither do most members of the Supreme Court, or so the justicesÂ’ comments indicated during an argument Monday on the constitutional rights of passengers in that familiar but uncomfortable situation.

The question of whether a “reasonable” passenger would feel free to leave was significant because that perception is a principal part of the court’s test for whether a “seizure” has taken place within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

If a reasonable person would not feel constrained, then he or she has not been “seized” and has no basis for complaining that the police have violated the Fourth Amendment. The converse is also true: a person who reasonably feels detained by the police is entitled to challenge the validity of the police action and perhaps to keep illegally seized evidence out of court.

The surprisingly vexing question of the rights of passengers was brought to the Supreme Court by a California man who was a passenger in a car that a police officer stopped, ostensibly to investigate a possibly expired registration. The stop was later found to be improper because, earlier in the day, when the car was parked, the same officer had checked and learned that it was properly registered.

Given that the first thing police officers do when you try to open that door is order you to close it and remain in the vehicle -- at times with weapons drawn -- I don't think that there can be any other conclusion than to decide in favor of the fellow who was arrested and charged in this case -- though there might well be other bbases for upholding his conviction.

Posted by: Greg at 10:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Hillary Clinton had this reaction to yesterdayÂ’s partial birth abortion infanticide decision.

"TodayÂ’s decision blatantly defies the CourtÂ’s recent decision in 2000 striking down a state partial-birth abortion law because of its failure to provide an exception for the health of the mother."

Excuse me, Senator, but it is the proper place of the Supreme Court to determine that a precedent is wrong, and to overrule it.

Unless, of course, you have a problem with the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education to “defy” the venerable precedent set in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson, which held that “separate but equal” segregation was not a violation the 14th Amendment.

So, Senator, do you believe that the Supreme Court has the right and obligation to overturn wrongly decided precedents – or do you believe that our public schools should still be segregated?

Or is it possible that your ignorance of the US Constituiton renders you unfit to be President -- or Senator, for that matter?

Posted by: Greg at 12:04 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Contrary to the wailings of the supporters of legalized abortion infanticide, this decision does not overturn the ill-considered and flawed precedent established by Roe v. Wade. Rather, it reinforces that precedent by recognizing that the government does have a compelling interest in limiting late-term abortions, which Roe itself indicates can be banned. And this decision does not even go that far, merely allowing the restriction of a single method of abortion infanticide that kills a child that has effectively been delivered.

he Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how — not whether — to perform an abortion.

Roe v. Wade allowed for regulation of second and third trimester abortions -- and a ban on the latter. How can the supporters of Roe complain?

Posted by: Greg at 11:53 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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