The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander Read Free Book Online Page A

motivations are irrelevant when evaluating the reasonableness of police activity under the Fourth Amendment. It does not matter, the Court declared, why the police are stopping motorists under the Fourth Amendment, so long as some kind of traffic violation gives them an excuse. The fact that the Fourth Amendment was specifically adopted by the Founding Fathers to prevent arbitrary stops and searches was deemed unpersuasive. The Court ruled that the police are free to use minor traffic violations as a pretext to conduct drug investigations, even when there is no evidence of illegal drug activity.
    A few months later, in Ohio v. Robinette , the Court took its twisted logic one step further. In that case, a police officer pulled over Robert Robinette, allegedly for speeding. After checking Robinette’s license and issuing a warning (but no ticket), the officer then ordered Robinette out of his vehicle, turned on a video camera in the officer’s car, and then asked Robinette whether he was carrying any drugs and would “consent” to a search. He did. The officer found a small amount of marijuana in Robinette’s car, and a single pill, which turned out to be methamphetamine.
    The Ohio Supreme Court, reviewing the case on appeal, was obviously uncomfortable with the blatant fishing expedition for drugs. The court noted that traffic stops were increasingly being used in the War on Drugs to extract “consent” for searches, and that motorists may not believe they are free to refuse consent and simply drive away. In an effort to provide some minimal protection for motorists, the Ohio court adopted a bright-line rule, that is, an unambiguous requirement that officers tell motorists they are free to leave before asking for consent to search their vehicles. At the very least, the justices reasoned, motorists should know they have the right to refuse consent and to leave, if they so choose.
    The U.S. Supreme Court struck down this basic requirement as “unrealistic.” In so doing, the Court made clear to all lower courts that, from now on, the Fourth Amendment should place no meaningful constraints on the police in the War on Drugs. No one needs to be informed of their rights during a stop or search, and police may use minor traffic stops as well as the myth of “consent” to stop and search anyone they choose for imaginary drug crimes, whether or not any evidence of illegal drug activity actually exists.
    One might imagine that the legal rules described thus far would provide more than enough latitude for the police to engage in an all-out, no-holds-barred war on drugs. But there’s more. Even if motorists, after being detained and interrogated, have the nerve to refuse consent to a search, the police can arrest them anyway. In Atwater v. City of Lago Vista , the Supreme Court held that the police may arrest motorists for minor traffic violations and throw them in jail (even if the statutory penalty for the traffic violation is a mere fine, not jail time).
    Another legal option for officers frustrated by a motorist’s refusal to grant “consent” is to bring a drug-sniffing dog to the scene. This option is available to police in traffic stops, as well as to law enforcement officials confronted with resistant travelers in airports and in bus or train stations who refuse to give the police consent to search their luggage. The Supreme Court has ruled that walking a drug-sniffing dog around someone’s vehicle (or someone’s luggage) does not constitute a “search,” and therefore does not trigger Fourth Amendment scrutiny. 21 If the dog alerts to drugs, then the officer has probable cause to search without the person’s consent. Naturally, in most cases, when someone is told that a drug-sniffing dog will be called, the seized individual backs down and “consents” to the search, as it has become apparent that the police are determined to conduct the search one way or another.

Cracked Up—Discriminatory Sentencing in