Illinois Headed for Junk Status

[bae]

Point taken Tradd. It was the highway patrol who for "following too closely" locked me in their cruiser, handcuffed my jacketless passenger on a cold day on the side of the road, and began dismantling parts of the car looking for drugs.

And alongside the road, in a foreign state, is probably not the time to be discussing search & seizure law with the nice officers :-(

[Yppej]

Bae I didn't realize the extent to which my civil liberties were violated until afterwards when I read "The New Jim Crow". It made me proud I had voted for Rand Paul. Absolutely no reasonable suspicion as our IDs/criminal records were clean when they ran them through their system. I was in the car when they did it and saw but they didn't care.

[bae]

Bae I didn't realize the extent to which my civil liberties were violated until afterwards when I read "The New Jim Crow". It made me proud I had voted for Rand Paul. Absolutely no reasonable suspicion as our IDs/criminal records were clean when they ran them through their system. I was in the car when they did it and saw but they didn't care.

This is why I usually travel with a lawyer :-)

[herbgeek]

This is why I usually travel with a lawyer :-)

Aren't you married to one?

[Lainey]

Many states are in trouble. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/state-bu...-of-reckoning/

Meredith Whitney and others are warning this is the next big financial crisis. Whitney warned of the 2008 collapse and is now predicting this.
I'm concerned for friends who rely on county and state pensions.

[Williamsmith]

Bae I didn't realize the extent to which my civil liberties were violated until afterwards when I read "The New Jim Crow". It made me proud I had voted for Rand Paul. Absolutely no reasonable suspicion as our IDs/criminal records were clean when they ran them through their system. I was in the car when they did it and saw but they didn't care.

We used to call this a "whiteline" search. But typically, a minor traffic violation is the probable cause for the stop. A written warning would be issued once ID , registration and insurance information was confirmed. If there was some type of drug paraphernalia or an odor of marijuana then a search could be conducted based on the plain view doctrine. All occupants of the car would then be removed, patted down for weapons and ordered to remain away from the car. Handcuffs would be unusual unless someone was being belligerent or refusing cooperation. Once stopped, your safety is their responsibility.

As a general rule- we didn't handcuff unless the person was under arrest and a criminal complaint followed by arraignment was in the works. However, a search of this kind has the potential to be extremely dangerous and creates a hazardous situation overall.

If no probable cause to search developed, after the warning was issued or citation....permission to search the car would be asked of the driver or owner if present. Often this would be done in written form if possible when consent was obtained. This is where many a court case was won or lost. Just what that conversation was specifically was often a debate. Written consent eliminates much of the mystery but still often people would claim police coercion.

You were a victim of the "War on Drugs" . I too voted for Rand Paul and was very disappointed in his latest Presidential run. His father attended a school I am very familiar with and his family owned a dairy farm in my childhood neck of the woods.

I have more to say about "police profiling" but my time is short today. Pennsylvania was placed under the microscope for this and the findings probably would surprise you. Also, we are experiencing somewhat of a financial crisis brought in partly by public pension fund raiding by the legislature. You should be very concerned because if that domino falls, your money will be worthless also.

[Lainey]

Public pension fund raiding was done by the state of New Jersey too. It's likely the case in other states.
IMO the union leaders were asleep at the wheel - the first year this happened they should have gone on strike until that money was replaced. It wasn't meant to be a piggybank for legislators pet projects.

[Tybee]

The Illinois pension mess has gotten much coverage since at least 2012. Here's a helpful piece from 2013:

http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2015/...ension-debacle

We are kind of glad we left Chicago, although we did not have pensions. Some of my husband's brothers and sisters do.

[Yppej]

Thank you for your perspective Williamsmith. I gave consent for the search because I knew I had nothing to hide. My passenger said we were lucky they did not plant drugs or beat him up on a pretext. We were coming back from a trip to visit family in Milwaukee, where we met several people who had moved there because Chicago got so bad.

[Florence]

It isn't just Illinois that is in trouble. New Jersey, Maine, and Oklahoma are in dire straits too. (It's probably just a coincidence that they all have tax-cutting Republican governors.)