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While the headline on fark.com was
, the actual article = not as much. And if anyone bothered to bring up the case on LexisNexis or Westlaw, the court had ample citations to approve this ruling.Umm, trying to break down legalese in to English (anyone want to help?):
1) Dude (Brendlin) unlawfully pulled over and charged with possession and manufacture of meth
2) [Eventually] the court dismissed the drug charges because of the unconstitutional seizure evidence (lack of probable cause, etc.)
Stop(collaborate and listen): Despite the headline, the courts held that Brendlin could challenge the stop's constitutionality (4th Amendment), making charges made on evidence found from that stop useless (thanks to US v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S. Ct. 1870, 64 K, Ed, 2d 497).
3) The kicker:
Brokenbrough asked both the driver, Karen Simeroth, and the passenger, defendant, to identify themselves. Simeroth handed Brokenbrough her driver's license. Defendant said his name was Bruce Brown; however, from prior contacts, the officer recognized him as being one of the Brendlin brothers, either Scott or Bruce.
Believing that one of the Brendlin brothers was "a parolee at large," Brokenbrough "put Bruce Brendlin's name over the radio."
So in another light, the cop recognized Brendlin as being a fuck-up, and after following up via radio calls, took Brendlin in to custody. There's a question to the ends justify the means, but if you saw a known criminal, you'd be with in your rights to either issue a citizen's arrest or call the cops (you and I would probably end up doing that)(o.k. I probably wouldn't because I'm lazy). Point is, if you have an arrest warrant out on you, don't do anything that would attract any attention.
I'm pretty sure I'm more for individual rights than a lot of people who were whining about this ruling (Libertarians, hoo-rah), but [copious] citations and the logical reasoning is there, in the case ruling. As usual, the media did an excellent job making a headline.
One more brief point of relevant info: this has been bounced around the court systems for seven years. While there's a worry that cops are dumbasses (which some are) and they'll misconstrue this because the headline (which some will), the case is solid.
Correct me if you've read the case and have a valid point against it. Other than the whole "cops are dumb" "bad precedent" route. I'll concede that it has a possibility to set a bad precedent - really dumb cops start believing they can run illegal stops whenever they want, but 1)Those are the cops that glanced at the news headline, and 2) they'll be smacked down by a judge as soon as they try and pull an illegal stop on an innocent (no warrants) person.
Oh, and if you want to, citation follows.
See PEOPLE v. BRENDLIN 45 Cal. 4th 262; 195 P.3d 1074; 85 Cal. Rptr. 3d 496; 2008 Cal. LEXIS 13631
EDIT: Corrected case citation (thanks, Melinda!).
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