How to Go to Prison
If you’re interested in becoming a martyr for Jonathan Landay and Tim Cavanaugh‘s version of the Fourth Amendment, here’s an easy way to do it. Put a bunch of contraband in your trunk, and drive a little faster than the speed limit – just fast enough that you might get a ticket, but not fast enough to stick out among ordinary speeders. Sooner or later, you’ll get pulled over. Maybe a cop will ask you if it’s OK to look around the car. If he does, say “sure, go ahead.” If he doesn’t, volunteer the topic on your own. Either way, he’ll find the stuff, arrest you and charge you criminally. Then, trot out the Reason equivalent of an attorney, and he’ll argue that the results of the search were inadmissible because the cop did not have … probable cause.
May 13th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Or drive back and forth across the border until the customs agents search your car. Then tell them they can’t arrest you because they don’t have a warrant.
Or build a meth lab in plain sight in your living room, play your music really loudly and when the cops come to tell you to turn it down, invite them in and…
May 13th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
[...] D is dumb criminals. [...]
May 16th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
“Or drive back and forth across the border until the customs agents search your car.”
But that would take forever!
May 17th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
Ben: Naw, not very long, really.
Especially if you tell them you have any meat products in the car. For some reason, meat or produce makes them eager to search the vehicle, at least coming in from Canada. (Ask me how I know this!)
Or act really nervous. I bet that works pretty well. (Okay, I don’t know this one from experience, but…)
May 17th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Ah, but acting too nervous might give them probable cause, thereby surviving a challenge under even Tim Cavanaugh’s version of the Fourth Amendment. Ditto for meat products, unless you were careful to phrase it right so that they don’t have probable cause to believe you’re importing too much, the wrong kinds of meat, etc. If they have probable cause to believe a search will reveal contraband, no one will question the admissibility of whatever contraband actually turns up.