#rights

Cars in public parking lots can be searched at any time by police with drug sniffing dogs, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled last week. The precedent was handed down in the case of James S. Hobbs IV who was arrested on March 13, 2009. State troopers had an arrest warrant for Hobbs and were waiting for him across the street from the Pizza Hut where the suspect worked. At 9:15pm, Hobbs left the restaurant and placed an object in his car, but the police were not able to grab Hobbs before he returned to the restaurant.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals yesterday upheld the conviction of a motorist whose pants fell down after he was ordered to put his hands up. Judge Kevin Ross noted on behalf of the three-judge panel considering the case that previous courts had never considered a search quite like the one conducted on Frank Irving Wiggins as he was ordered out of his car in the parking lot of a St. Paul White Castle in November 2008.

Officer Kara Breci had seen Wiggins in his idling vehicle and assumed he was involved in a drug deal since he was not eating. Breci investigated. After she saw a rear-seat passenger with a bag that looked like it contained marijuana, she ordered Wiggins and two passengers out of the car with hands on their head. The loose-fitting jeans Wiggins had been wearing immediately fell to the ground. As Breci pulled up Wiggins’s pants, she felt an object that turned out to be a .380 pistol in his pocket. Because of his prior convictions, Wiggins was arrested and convicted by a district court for unlawful possession of a firearm.

Fighting speed camera and red light camera tickets in federal court is becoming increasingly difficult as yet another US district court judge yesterday embraced the use of automated ticketing machines. Judge Nanette K. Laughrey dismissed the class action lawsuit that Gregory Mills had filed against the city of Springfield and Lasercraft, a private vendor that has since been bought out by American Traffic Solutions. Mills argued that because the Missouri Supreme Court in March struck down the city’s program as illegal ( view decision), those who received tickets were entitled to a refund.

An Ontario, Canada judge in July faulted the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and Attorney General of Ontario for attempting to confiscate $46,078 contrary to the law. Officer Paul Barkley had pulled over a 2000 Mazda traveling on Highway 401 near Morrisburg just after midnight on October 16, 2009. Barkley had assumed the driver, Remus Petran, might have been drunk because he was driving below the speed limit. After speaking to Petran, who was sober, Barkley decided to search the vehicle.

In the Mazda’s trunk, Barkley found a gym bag containing CDN $74,980. Petran explained that he worked in construction and was paid in cash. For this, Petran was arrested for possession of property obtained by crime and his car towed away. After police found no evidence of a crime, Petran was unconditionally released with his car and without any charges filed — but police kept the cash.

Making a recording of a police traffic stop is not a crime in the opinion of Maryland’s attorney general. In a ruling issued last month from the state’s top law enforcement office, Chief Counsel Robert N. McDonald found the legal grounds weak for felony wiretapping charges of the type brought against a motorcyclist who posted a video of himself being arrested on YouTube. Maryland State Police had taken advantage of ambiguity in the law to prosecute Anthony Graber, 25 for the April 13 recording.