Feast or Famine

I had been humming right along on here. Then I miss one day, and then next thing you know I have missed over a month. That is rather typical of me. In my defense, my wife and I did go on consecutive out of state trips, followed by my father having a stroke. Last weekend we traveled twelve or so hours to spend some time with him and my father. And court was closed for a couple of weeks over the holidays, so it's not like we could have missed that much action, right?

Today I represented Jermaine Kinton. Here are the facts of Jermaine's case: Officer Williams was driving down the road when he saw Jermaine driving his Cadillac in a bad neighborhood. Black guy + Cadillac + bad neighborhood = Traffic stop. So Williams radios ahead to fellow officer O'Connor that he has just spotted a black male driving a Cadillac without his seatbelt on. Now, of course, it is perfectly legal to stop someone for not having their seatbelt. But how normal is it to radio ahead to another officer that someone is not wearing his seatbelt? I will go on record and guess that this has never happened to a white person in the history of mankind.

So O'Connor sees Jermaine approaching and recognizes Jermaine. Officer O'Connor knows Jermaine. He knows that Jermaine has an outstanding order for his arrest for missing his court date. Officer O'Connor turns around so that he can go pull over Jermaine. By now, Jermaine has turned into his driveway. While still in his car, O'Connor pulls in behind him and approaches the vehicle. He orders Jermaine out of the car. Jermaine refuses. O'Connor then breaks the window of Jermaine's car. O'Connor then uses his taser on Jermaine. O'Connor says that he saw Jermaine swallow some marijuana. He charges Jermaine with possession of marijuana, destroying criminal evidence, and resisting arrest.

Now, interesting enough, O'Connor never sees that Jermaine is not wearing a seatbelt. An officer cannot initiate a stop because another officer said he saw him not wearing a seatbelt. But an officer can certainly initiate a stop when he knows that there is an outstanding warrant against a person. So O'Connor's stop of Jermaine must have been okay for that reason, right? Well, there was no outstanding warrant against Jermaine. Jermaine had been served with it three days earlier.

An officer can stop someone in that circumstance provided that the officer has a good faith belief that there is an outstanding warrant. So the State is clearly going to argue that O'Connor had a good faith belief that there was an outstanding warrant and that gave O'Connor probably cause to stop Jermaine.

But let's look at the facts: O'Connor incredibly discovers Jermaine because another officer radios him to tell him that he was not wearing a seatbelt. O'Connor believes there is an outstanding warrant. Jermaine has pulled into a driveway. Does O'Connor call it in to see if the warrant is still outstanding? Jermaine isn't going anywhere. He is boxed in the driveway by O'Connor's car. O'Connor has plenty of opportunity to see if there is an outstanding warrant. Instead, he breaks the window and tases a guy for not getting out of his car.

Ah, the joys of being black in America.