Also, no warrant would be required to perform a search when requested by the citizen, right? "Please, officer, look in my trunk!"
Even if those people were on-duty officers, it's not a search if the evidence is in "plain view."
Also, no warrant would be required to perform a search when requested by the citizen, right? "Please, officer, look in my trunk!"
No, of course not. (Actually, I believe that accepted doctrine has changed since "99 Problems" was written and a locked trunk is no longer safe from warrentless search.)
Had I been smarter, I would have taken the ticket and fought it in court, but as a scared 18 year old, I allowed myself to be cuffed, placed in the backseat of a cop car while he tossed my truck. He had ever opportunity to plant anything he wanted, and thankfully he wasn't too corrupt of an officer - other than coercing an illegal search.
That is why I have a slight anti-police bias. I have family in the force, so I try to be respectful of police, and I know plenty of amazing police officers, but there are a lot of bad apples that spoil the bunch.
I was walked backwards, hands on head to a police car and cuffed, thrown down on the hood and very physically frisked (ever had someone literally pull your balls down ... yeah)
I stood with my hands behind my back for 10 minutes sitting on them, very painfully (i am a big dude, but i was larger then, over 420lbs (this plays into the story later)
I was talked to like i was trash while officers begin looking through my truck, throwing everything out of place...
...
Want to know why this happened? Because 10 minutes earlier someone robbed the store i was driving behind. His description was a SKINNY male (the word "skinny" was specifically used) with dark hair and a beard. Even through the window of my truck, if you could tell i had a beard, you could tell i wasnt skinny. I was of course let go... but basically my truck was ransacked, left completely a mess, and I was left feeling rather victimized (its not a good feeling knowing 6 guns are loaded and pointed at you with no safety on... its a lot more impactful than you think before it happens to you) ...
At the end of the day, any one with common sense isnt going to think the person who (on foot) robbed a store is going to drive right by the store, surrounded by police officers, 10 minutes later... and i didnt even match the description... yet somehow their warrantless search of my vehicle and self were totally legal and fine...
These were just assholes who wanted to get all hopped up on being the hero that day...
Oh, and at the end... the whole thing ended with the last words of the cop being "you're lucky we arent citing you for your license plate light being out" ... thats how cold cops are, thats what law enforcement is in America... its a bunch of losers who get handed power (because what kind of person seeks out power through a badge and a gun) and in turn, look for every opportunity to use said power in extreme ways to get their kicks...
Warrants are just peices of paper... intimidation is the way of the police now. That's their preferred method of getting what they want
I had tapes and CDs (remember those) thrown out of their cases, my clipboard for work was broken, my flashlight was opened and the batteries thrown about.
Had he been respectful of my things, it would have just been a laughing matter about how I used a "drug dealer's" driveway to turn around, but instead he ripped apart my truck looking for god only knows what, just to drive off without helping put anything back in its place.
I once built model rocket engines with my son (see sugar rockets online). I kept legal amounts of the mixed chemical as well as the individual components for that in my trunk at various times (going to a launch site, coming home from the hardware store, etc).
In a case like that it's not the officers job to decide if you did anything wrong or not. It's their job to report that you had "bomb making supplies" or some "white powder substance" in your trunk and let the court system sort it out.
Even more so if, simultaneously, the FBI is paying them to report search results. That's probably the monkey wrench in this whole deal. Most mandatory reporters are not being paid for it.
Asking questions, however, doesn't require a warrant - even for a government employee. Once a MD sees bruises they are free to probe (and it's partially so they can treat other damage that may not be visible on the surface) into how they got there.
They are OK, as they are not being paid by the law enforcement agency.
The issue here is a search is not a "private search" once the searcher is a paid government actor.
For example if a day care worker was able to (just hypothetically) attach a microphone to a childs bag and from that uncovered sounds of abuse at home my guess is that would not be legal or be able to be used as evidence. Not because the recording was illegal but because it didn't fit the definition of reporting signs of abuse.
In that case it is nit officer look in my trunk It is a mechanic that needs to pull up a spare tire from it and is on a payroll by the officer.
Mandatory reporters are stupid idea. I doubt it can help a lot. I also think that the false positives will be disturbingly high if people take the job seriously.
Especially visible to those who have suffered it before... You can see it - Mandatory reporters can make a huge difference.
There was a teacher in high school that made a sport of reporting nearly any bruise to authorities. Completely ridiculous.
Mandatory reporting never helped me either, even though it should have.