SEVENTH CIRCUIT UPHOLDS PRETEXT SEARCH

Jermario Taylor was driving his GMC Yukon when he was pulled over by Special Agents Dustin Brown and Jeff Martin for driving without a seatbelt. Now Brown and Martin were not any two cops. Rather they were with the Kankakee Area Metropolitan Enforcement Group, a drug task force located in Kankakee County, Illinois. When they stopped Taylor, do they give him a ticket and leave. No they ask to search his vehicle. when Taylor asks if he must give consent, Brown and Martin say no but we just so happen to have drug sniffing dogs in our vehicle and we will have them take a sniff around your car. We would not be talking about it if the dogs didn’t find drugs. They did and Taylor was eventually sentenced to 120 months in prison and eight years of supervised release for possession of crack cocaine with the intent to distribute it.

Of course Brown and Martin say that they ask everyone they stop for traffic violations if they can search their vehicle and use the dog if they find resistance. They were just lucky. Well if you believe this . . . I have a bridge to sell you. My bet is that they recognized Taylor and used the lack of seat belts as a pretext to stop him. Also while I do not know Taylor’s race I’d be willing to bet that he is African American and that he would not have been stopped and searched if he was White.

But the Seventh Circuit says, never mind, it doesn’t make any difference. As long as Brown and Martin had probable cause to believe that Taylor was driving without seatbelts in place, the vehicle can be stopped and the dogs can sniff for drugs. The intent of the officers is irrelevant.

The obvious question is why have a Fourth Amendment? Any time anyone drives police officers, if they follow you for long enough, will find probable cause to stop you. If its not the seatbelts, you cross the white line, or go one mile over the speed limit. I can’t believe that James Madison and George Mason would have approved of such a pretextual search when they wrote the Bill of Rights. I suspect they would have been quite upset if the British had used such a pretext to search a wagon load of guns covered with hay heading towards Lexington for use by the revolutionaries. But this is the twenty-first century where we are fighting a war against drugs and the ends justify the means.