Florida Supreme Court rules drivers can be ordered out of vehicles for drug sweeps

[RandySF]

Police officers can order a driver they’ve pulled over out of the vehicle to ensure their safety and that of a K-9 unit conducting a drug sweep, the Florida Supreme Court ruled

Such an order doesn’t violate a driver’s Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures, Justice Renatha Francis wrote in the 5-1 opinion for the court, as prior U.S. Supreme Court precedent already allows for it.

“We hold that binding Fourth Amendment precedent permits a K-9 officer arriving midway through a lawful traffic stop to command the driver to exit the vehicle for officer safety before conducting a lawful vehicle sweep,” Francis wrote.

The case stemmed from a 2018 incident in which Tampa Police officers pulled over Joshua Creller after he maneuvered through a gas station to avoid a red light; a traffic violation. Two officers approached the vehicle, including one in plain clothes who asked Creller to search the vehicle, to which he refused.




https://floridapolitics.com/archives/675974-florida-supreme-court-rules-drivers-can-be-ordered-out-of-vehicles-for-drug-sweeps/

[msongs]

1. dont see any evidence of probably cause from this description nt

[Igel]

8. Without the reporter thinking the legal argumentation mattered in the least,

I'd think that a majority found a "compelling state interest" in the "safety of the drivers and pedestrians." versus the inconvenience and legal risk that's involved.

There's a real tension between "safety" and "liberty" here, and it's fascinating--and frustrating, and both amusing and enraging--to see how people decide which is more important, instance by instance.

Then again, I'm fairly patient. Don't think of cops as evil; my cousin's one, and the only violence in her nuclear family was when a first-born son was gunned down as two "youths" argued in a Denny's and pulled guns and killed people and injured others ... but not each other.)

I don't drive drunk--I wait 60 minutes after the last bit of beer from the pint or liquid from shot I ordered more than an hour before is downed. I've left with "my crew" and got to my car and returned to wait it out. I've never done drugs--and when recovering from surgery, seldom took the drugs as often as prescribed and never as long as allowed. (I assume that dissolving them and spreading them on a hot driveway in the mid-late July sun when there no rain for week probably renders them fairly amenable to having what's left that's "bad" detoxified by bacteria. And the front yard's not a bad option--watered with the crap, nothing's grown there, bacteria and oxygen and sun ... Why burden the waste-water treatment facility?)

But before judging the judges, I want to see the text of the law and the argumentation. Otherwise, I'm judging on outcomes, and that means judging on what I think, not based on what our democracy decided by law and how the judge(s) interpreted the law--and I've set myself as the judge of our democracy, a very autocratic outlook.

Back to metabolising a toxic substance.

[Shermann]

2. Can't wait for the drug sweep refusal videos!

[angrychair]

3. I'm confused

Cops can search your car without probable cause? Which I assumed a normal traffic stop is not probable cause enough to trigger a physical search a vehicle. This is basically saying that a cop can just make something up to stop a vehicle and use that as justification to search it.
This seems like a serious erosion of our rights.

[RandySF]

4. Yes, yes and yes.

[angrychair]

6. So did a little quick reading

And the SCOTUS case still requires either consent or probable cause, which it appears, even under the SCOTUS ruling, that a simple traffic stop, is not enough cause under that standard. Yea, this ruling should absolutely be appealed to SCOTUS.

[Qutzupalotl]

5. Makes them much easier to plant. nt