Tuesday April 24 10:36 AM ET Supreme Court Allows Minor Traffic Offense Arrest

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a decision affecting the nation's 185 million licensed drivers, a divided Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that individuals can be arrested for minor traffic violations punishable only by a fine.

The high court, by a 5-4 vote, said the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which bans unreasonable arrests and searches, does not limit police discretion to make arrests for routine traffic violations.

``The question is whether the Fourth Amendment forbids a warrantless arrest for a minor criminal offense, such as a misdemeanor seat-belt violation punishable only by a fine. We hold that it does not,'' Justice David Souter said for the court majority.

Souter, normally one of the court's most liberal members, was joined by four conservatives -- Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate conservative, dissented, saying, ``The court neglects the Fourth Amendment's express command in the name of administrative ease'' and it ''cloaks the pointless indignity'' that the woman in the case suffered ``with the mantle of reasonableness.''

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010424/ts/court_arrest_dc_2.html

Link prolly won't work. Gotta read up on HTML, I guess.

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2001

Answers

Response to POL/NWO 4th amendment alert !

Link

Gr8,

To post a hot link just do the following, but use < or > where you see ( or ) in the line. I have to use the parens or it will create the actual link which would not then post as the pattern you need.

(a href=Put your actual URL in this spot)then name it any way you please in this spot, then(/a)

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2001

Response to POL/NWO 4th amendment alert !

All better now. I'm not sure why the software decides to split up the link code. I think if you start out with the <, followed by the rest of the code, it will stay in one line as it's supposed to. If you type the URL first, then put in the < stuff, I think it screws up. Maybe Carl knows. Anyway, I went into the innards and hit a few things with a spanner. :)

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2001