If you‘ve ever been pulled over, you no doubt have been asked the same question: "Do you know why I pulled you over?"
And if you‘re stuck in a 24-hour, no-lying birthday wish, you might confess all your road sins like one of the faithful unloading at confession.
But if that's not the case, you probably just clam up and shrug like the rest of us.
In California, no one is going to have to worry about that uncomfortable moment come January 2024.
A new law (AB-2773) says that California police officers are going to have to give their reasons for stopping people up front.
This bill requires a peace officer making a traffic or pedestrian stop, before engaging in questioning related to a criminal investigation or traffic violation, to state the reason for the stop, unless the officer reasonably believes that withholding the reason for the stop is necessary to protect life or property from imminent threat.
The law was created to stop "pretextual" stops. Those are the stops where police stop a car because something "feels" wrong: The old "gut-feeling" all the movie cops talk about.
Police often use pretextual stops to investigate other potential crimes and search a person's vehicle based on probable cause instead of getting a warrant, and they have become widespread ever since the Supreme Court case, Whren v. United States, in 1996 ruled that they didn't violate the Fourth Amendment:
...the temporary detention of a motorist upon probable cause to believe that he has violated the traffic laws does not violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable seizures, even if a reasonable officer would not have stopped the motorist absent some additional law enforcement objective.
Of course, none of that is the reason why California passed this law.
The bill's author, CA Senator Chris Holden, said the bill was needed,
To promote equity and accountability in communities across California — that is my goal. AB2773 brings transparency to service of protecting our public.
Of course it's all about "equity."
In the California Senate hearing about the bill, Holden presented this argument:
RIPA stop data for the following year (2020) showed that the most commonly reported reason for a stop (86.1%) across all racial/ethnic groups was a traffic violation, and that individuals perceived as Black or Hispanic comprised 60% of the stops reported, while just under 32% of the stops involved individuals perceived as White.
The 2020 data also reflected a continuation of the previous year's trends as well as a finding that "officers searched, detained on the curb or in a patrol car, handcuffed, and removed from vehicles more individuals perceived as Black than individuals perceived as White, even though they stopped more than double the number of individuals perceived as White than individuals perceived as Black."
So, this bill is primarily meant to stop the police from using traffic stops to catch black criminals engaged in other crimes, not because the commies in California have suddenly developed a libertarian streak that would like a strict reading of the 4A.
Honestly, I'm having a hard time being mad though.
For better or worse, I've read it several times, and there's no way Whren was a good decision.
The Fourth Amendment is pretty clear about how the government can perform searches and seizures, and a traffic stop by a law-enforcement officer isn't it.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
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