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Floyd v. City of Crystal Springs11/24/1999
h the information which forms the basis for the search (e.g., the police cannot search for a stolen television in a pocketbook), so, too, should a stop be commensurate with its objective. Indeed, this is exactly what the United States Supreme Court held in Terry -- an investigative detention is permissible only if (1) "the officer's action was justified at its inception," and (2) "it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place." Terry, 392 U.S. at 20, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (emphasis added). If speeding and/or reckless driving is an indication of no crime other than speeding and/or reckless driving, an investigative stop of a driver alleged to have been speeding and/or driving recklessly is pointless inasmuch as the stop terminates all evidence of the crime. If the officer has not observed the driver speeding and/or driving recklessly, stopping the driver is not going to aid his investigation.
. If the police had themselves observed Floyd violating traffic ordinances, they could have stopped him and seized him long enough to process a citation. The fact that he was observed violating traffic ordinances, however, does not ipso facto, give police probable cause to make an investigative stop. In other words, speeding and driving recklessly are not evidence that the driver is likely to be committing other crimes.
. What is lacking here is any reasonable suspicion that Floyd, seen speeding by another motorist, was likely to be engaging in any criminal activity other than speeding and/or driving recklessly. As a practical matter, stopping a driver to investigate whether he might have been speeding defies all common sense. Because stopping the driver actually pretermits all evidence that the driver might be speeding, it cannot be said that the stop and search are "reasonably related in scope to the circumstances [alleged speeding] which justified the interference in the first place." Terry, 392 U.S. at 20, 88 S.Ct. at 1868.
. In Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U.S. 113, 119 S.Ct. 484, 488, 142 L.E.2d 492 (1998), the United States Supreme Court reversed a conviction for possession of drugs which had been found in a search incident to a traffic citation. There was no justification for a search of the car where once the speeder was stopped, "all the evidence necessary to prosecute that offense had been obtained. No further evidence of excessive speed was going to be found either on the person of the offender or in the passenger compartment of the car." Knowles, 119 S.Ct. at 488.
. The majority argues that "applying the felony/misdemeanor distinction in traffic violation cases would require law enforcement officials to ignore communications of other officials warning of drivers who may be impaired, ill, reckless, or dangerous to the public unless the officer has probable cause to arrest." This is hardly the great concern the majority would have us believe. If an officer is given a report of an impaired driver, he needs only to follow the driver a short distance to determine for himself whether the driver is impaired. Since the officer would have to apprehend the vehicle to stop the car anyway, it should demand no extra effort to require the officer to verify for himself that the suspected bad driver is a bad driver in reality.
. The majority's opinion in this case does more than just make bad law; it threatens the very freedoms upon which this nation was founded. The idea that police officers may stop citizens for no reason other than that they might have been speeding is specious. The majority, it seems, would have one give up all right to be free from government intrusion once he enters his automobile. I, for one, canno
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