Quote:
Originally Posted by Doc Marshall
Are these search provisions "good law"? At the risk of pouring gasoline on a political discussion, I'm personally horrified at the militarization of our police and the constant intrusion of government into my life.
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Not sure if you're responding to my statement about "good law" or not. By "good law" I mean it's on solid footing as precedent (notwithstanding the fact that the relevant opinions are very old). In other words, if a game warden asks to search your car after you've been fishing and you refuse, you're going to lose.
That's a different thing than saying it's "good policy." I would have preferred for the Court to hold that the 4th Amendment commands a warrant. I worry that any time a citizen has a fishing rod in plain view in his car, some creative officer might decide to use it as an pretext for a search. In my opinion, that is very, very bad, and it invites abuse. There's a 2005 decision from the Court of Criminal Appeals, State v. Lezotte, where the District Attorney noted a fishing rod in the back of a truck as a possible justification for a search in a DUI case, though the case was resolved on other grounds.
That said, the only ways to change that are to (a) have the legislature change the statute; or (b) get convicted for refusing a search and challenge it on appeal.
The first isn't going to happen, because we have a very conservative legislature in Tennessee, and nobody's going to sponsor a bill that limits law enforcement authority because they're afraid of being called "soft on crime." As far as the second, if someone here has a lot of money and wants to be the guinea pig, I'll take it all the way to the Tennessee Supreme Court for you, but be forewarned, it ain't gonna be cheap.
