Conservatives screwed this one up...

OFF THE WIRE
Our 4th Amendment violated by conservatives...
It was the conservative judges that ruled DUI Checkpoints constitutional.
http://law.jrank.org/pages/13063/Michigan-Department-State-Police-v-Sitz-et-al.html

Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, Republican
Anthony M. Kennedy, Republican
Sandra Day O'Connor, Republican
William H. Rehnquist (writing for the Court), Republican
Antonin Scalia, Republican
Byron R. White, Democrat (Kennedy)
Justices Dissenting
William J. Brennan, Jr., Democrat
Thurgood Marshall, Democrat
John Paul Stevens, Republican (Gave the dissenting opinion)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Dept._of_State_Police_v._Sitz

Background
In the state of Michigan, the state police adopted the practice of using random sobriety checkpoints to catch drunk drivers. A group of Michigan residents sued on the grounds that their Fourth Amendment rights prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure were being violated.

As the dissenting opinion by Justice Stevens explains, "a sobriety checkpoint is usually operated at night at an unannounced location. Surprise is crucial to its method. The test operation conducted by the Michigan State Police and the Saginaw County Sheriff's Department began shortly after midnight and lasted until about 1 a.m. During that period, the 19 officers participating in the operation made two arrests and stopped and questioned 124 other unsuspecting and innocent drivers"

During the operation, drivers would be stopped and briefly questioned while in their vehicles. If an officer suspected the driver was intoxicated, the driver would be sent off for a field sobriety test.
The Supreme Court held that Michigan had a "substantial government interest" to advance in stopping drunk driving, and that this technique was rationally related to achieving that goal (though there was some evidence to the contrary). The Court also held that the impact on drivers, such as in delaying them from reaching their destination, was negligible, and that the brief questioning to gain "reasonable suspicion" similarly had a negligible impact on the drivers' Fourth Amendment right from unreasonable search (implying that any more detailed or invasive searches would be treated differently). Applying a balancing test, then, the Court found that the Constitutionality of the search tilted in favor of the government.

TigerLily

Mark
It looks as if the court in this case ruled the way they ruled - not on reliance on the statute - but with a reliance on a strictly subjective condoning of police action.
I am the first to say that Republicans screw up nearly as often as Democrats. I am the first to say one screw up is one too many.
How do they sleep at night knowing the Judges are not supposed to add what the legislature omitted?
This from:
11 Cal.4th 342 (1995)
902 P.2d 297
45 Cal. Rptr.2d 279
CALIFORNIA FEDERAL SAVINGS AND LOAN ASSOCIATION et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants,
v.
CITY OF LOS ANGELES, Defendant and Respondent.
Docket No. S043694.
Supreme Court of California.
October 5, 1995.
"... It is our task to construe, not to amend, the statute. "In the construction of a statute ... the office of the judge is simply to ascertain and declare what is in terms or in substance contained therein, not to insert what has been omitted or omit what has been inserted...." (Manufacturers Life Ins. Company v. Superior Court (1995) 10 Cal.4th 257, 274 [41 Cal. Rptr.2d 220, 895 P.2d 56].) We may not, under the guise of construction, rewrite the law or give the words an effect different from the plain and direct import of the terms used."
>end cite<
If there was no statute, it is the responsibility of the elected legislature to enact legislation authorizing the police to act in a way to benefit the public.

How else could this be a country operated by the consent of the governed?
Mark

LOL - I like the underscore of the word, "nearly."
Tigerlily

Oh that was an underscore?


I think crossing out the word nearly would be more accurate. A simple Google search of open carry in California, A "God Given, fundemental,unalienable, natural" (tried to include erveryone), Right, will tell a story of tyranny, and how our right was breeched not by some "hippie liberal," but by an Iconic conservitive, who had no problem wiping his boney ass with the constitution. To serve his King like agenda, on his subjects for decades to come. and possibly for generations. see below and google for yourself.
The Black Panthers' decision to openly arm themselves during political protest terrified the public and set off a wave of gun control, including the end of open carry in California by Governor Ronald Reagan.
when this happened during the Obama town meetings it was highly talked about but respected as a Right. Only because We The People were on "High alert" about Gun ownership at the time.
 
David