Supreme Court to Consider Police Road Blocks
SCOTUSblog has a very interesting discussion of Illinois v. Lidster, which will be argued November 5. Mr. Lidster was arrested for drunk driving after he was stopped at a roadblock set up by police who were seeking possible witnesses to a fatal hit-and-run accident that had occurred at the same location and time of day one week earlier. Whether the roadblock violated Mr. Lidster's Fourth Amendment rights under current Supreme Court jurisprudence is a close and interesting question. SCOTUSblog's post even links to the briefs.
Comments
In my opinion it Mr. Lidsters rights were violated. Just as my wife rights were. On november 30 at about 1:15 am my wife was stopped at an roadblock.on her way home from work. not drunk ,speeding or breaking the law in any way. She could not immediatly find her proof of insurance ,which was in the car, but the officer told her she had five seconds to produce it or he was issuing a citation. She recieved a citation. Now she has to go to court to show proof of insurance which she has and had at the time and would have shown the very rude and impatient officer. Now she has to waste an afternoon in court just to show a judge her insurance card. A waste of her time and the court and taxpayer money. We are looking into filing a multi-million dollar lawsuit.
Posted by: Robert Pahr | November 30, 2003 7:34 PM
I am sorry the officer was rude and I am sorry your wife has to appear before a judge and provide proof of insurance. However, have you filed a complaint with the law enforcement agency? Are you just looking for money? For every bad officer out there, there are many more good officers. Why punish all to get at one? People are so sue happy anymore. My wife was stopped and issued a ticket by a rude officer. He even told her she was lucky he did not write her another one for an offiense that can not be found our states law books. I even asked soem other officers from other agencies about this law and they said it did not exsist. Anyway, we paid for the ticket, which my wife was guilty of, and I did express my disappointment of how this officer acted to the prosecutor's office. They informed me that this was not the first complaint and they were looking into it. That is good for me, because I have met several officers from that same agency that are very good people and great law enforcement officers. So, simply stated do not punish the whole group for the actions of one.
Posted by: Robert | September 17, 2006 6:48 PM