Smelling Pot From a Moving Car with Closed Windows

Smelling Pot From a Moving Car with Closed Windows

The Washington Post recently published an article discussing the ease with which police can stop cars that they suspect might be carrying pot and drugs and courts readiness to accept outlandish claims
 
 The drug war has eviscerated the Fourth Amendment. And because of asset forfeiture policies that allow police to seize cash, the vehicle itself and other valuables they find on motorists that they guess are somehow connected to some sort of drug activity.  Usually the police department keeps 70 to 90% of the value of the confiscated property for itself, the court also get’s “a cut” along with the prosecutor.

If you are black or Latino the odds of getting pulled over as a “drug courier” increases substantially. A number of agencies explicitly state that race and ethnicity in and of themselves are enough to justify a stop.

Reforming the civil asset forfeiture laws would help a lot here. At a bare minimum we should not construct a system in which pays the police, the judges and eh prosecutors for violating the Fourth Amendment.

The Full Story Can Be Read Here…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/03/31/the-drug-war-exception-to-the-fourth-amendment/