The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s ruling on the John Doe case was pretty slimy.
But it wasn’t the only horrible decision the court made this week.
The Doe decision is getting all the attention — not without reason — but I think the court’s other big decision could have a bigger day-to-day impact on Wisconsinites, particularly Wisconsinites of color.
Here’s a tiny bit of background on the case. A cop pulled someone over for having an air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. While the driver was pulled over, the cop found some marijuana. The cop busted the driver.
Oh, but it turns out the cop was initially wrong. It isn’t illegal to have an air freshener hanging off a rearview mirror. The driver should never have been pulled over in the first place. A reasonable person would assume that the marijuana charge gets thrown out. After all, criminals on TV shows are always set free over technicalities like this.
Nope! The Wisconsin Supreme Court says what the cop did was a-okay.
It is now established Wisconsin precedent that you don’t need to break a traffic law for a cop to pull you over. The cop just needs to think you broke a traffic law.
Maybe the court is right; maybe it’s wholly unreasonable to expect officers of the law to have knowledge of the law. I don’t expect people working in a restaurant to understand food safety codes. As long as they go by what they think the food safety standards are, I probably won’t get botulism.
Don’t bother looking at my X-ray, surgeon. Where do you think you should make an incision?
This decision tips the balance of power way too far towards the police. It is already really easy for cops to pull people over. There are so many traffic laws that most drivers break at least a few just driving to the grocery store. An officer can pull people over for crossing the median for a split second if the road curves. It doesn’t matter that drivers don’t normally get busted for these laws. Sporadic enforcement alone doesn’t make a law invalid.
By using one of these often-ignored laws, an officer can pull a driver over and it’s fine and legal. Sure, the officer may have ulterior motives for following that driver for a few blocks until they slip up, but it is within their power.
Lawmakers wrote all of those traffic laws — common and arcane — and cops enforce said laws. Cops shouldn’t get to use truthiness to create their own reasons for traffic stops out of the ether.
Thanks to our courts, the powers of Wisconsin’s cops are limited only by their imaginations!
