I’ve been following the blogosphere’s reaction to the Illinois v. Caballes case, and for the sake of being “fair and balanced” I visited this blog from David, who describes himself as a “Southern surburban man with a loving wife, three strong sons, and one old dog. Independent who votes for the person not the party, but right now most of those people are Republicans. Graduate degree in public administration from a fine southern university. Former Air Force Officer; now in law enforcement and working my way towards retirement and my third career in teaching.”
I completely disagree with the man, and you can click the link to the post if you’d like to read his opinion. But when one respondent in the comments section told David how some people fear the cops, David had this to say:
Tales of a Wandering Mind: That pesky Fourth Amendment . . . Large segments of the population “hate and fear” my profession? You mean criminals, right? Because, while a cop may never be their best friend – no one likes getting speeding tickets – the vast majority of law-abiding folks appreciate us.
No, we mean peaceful, law-abiding citizens. Like Cheryl Noel. I’m certain that her husband Charlie and teenage son Matthew and his girlfriend Sarah are among the vast majority of law-abiding folks that appreciate you. Whoops, my mistake, they were criminals — they had a small, personal-use amount of marijuana, a couple of pot-smoking devices, and some black powder for muzzle-loader rifles. And Cheryl did (allegedly) point her 2nd-Amendment-protected personal firearm at black armor-clad invaders who burst into her house in the middle of the night, screaming, yelling, and in the midst of her sleep-addled and panicked state, and in the atmosphere of loud explosions and blinding flashes of light, it’s her fault that as a criminal she did not realize that the thundering boots of those men bursting into her bedroom belonged not to burglars or rapists, but fine law-enforcement officers honorably upholding their duty to serve and protect.
David, the reason a large segment of the population fears and hates police officers is because stupid prohibition laws make criminals out of otherwise law-abiding citizens. We’d love to have the opportunity to appreciate you. We’d love to only receive a speeding ticket or a warning for a burnt-out taillight, but every encounter with the man for us involves the fear of being arrested, booked, tried, and jailed simply because we choose buds over Bud, toking over tobacco, or marijuana over martinis.
But when we are mugged after leaving a concert, we fear calling you because you might hassle us for the marijuana smell on our jacket. When we are robbed, we’d just take our losses and pray the robber gets caught by someone else someday rather than call you to investigate our robbery and risk you searching and finding the bong in the closet. If we witness a violent assault or a drunk driver, we might call on you (we do love peace, after all), but only anonymously; we’re not likely to stick around and provide eyewitness details, for fear that you might see the Phish sticker on our VW Bus and decide to do a little extra-curricular investigation.
We are not criminals except in the literal sense of being a person who violates a statute. In any moral or ethical sense, we are no more criminals than the people who addle their mood with alcohol, tobacco, Xanax, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Levitra, Cialis, or Viagra. I know my blather is like teaching the pig to sing; it wastes my time and annoys the pig. Most drug warriors follow the tautological logic of “drugs are bad because they’re illegal because they’re bad because they’re illegal ad infinitum” I wonder why the maxim “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” doesn’t apply to drugs and crime? (As in, “drugs don’t cause crime, people cause crime”)
We are not criminals. We are your doctors, lawyers, IT professionals, engineers, actors, chefs, mechanics, and yes, even soldiers, politicians, and cops. It is estimated that 90M Americans have at least tried marijuana and as many as 10M-20M Americans are regular consumers. Do you really believe 3%-6% of the population are criminals? Or that 30% have committed a crime at least once in their life?
Sorry to go off-topic. To close, you offered an interesting view of the 4th Amendment:
If an officer makes an honest mistake – acts in good conscience – why should evidence of guilt be excluded? And if an officer purposefully breaks the law to obtain evidence, then shouldn’t that officer be punished instead of the people who will suffer when a guilty person goes free? And understand I am not talking manufacturing or planting evidence to frame a innocent person. I am speaking of a search that results in the collection of legitimate evidence of guilt.
That’s a hell of an idea. How about this caveat: any cop who breaks the law in obtaining evidence in a criminal case is subject to the exact same sentence in the exact same prison and must share a cell with the criminal he busted.
