Homeless in Arizona

Sadly the Supreme Court has ruled a number of times that it's OK for the police to lie to the public they pretend to protect.

Our government masters tell us they are just powerful servants who serve us. When is the last time it was OK for servants to lie to their masters that pay them?

While this article isn't about a Supreme Court case, it even gets worse.

It sounds like this appeals court is saying the police can lie about having "probable cause" to stop people and can stop and search anyone they feel like if the feel the person might be a criminal.

If you are in a car it is illegal for the police to stop and detain you unless they have "probable cause" or "reasonable suspicion".

In this case it's sounds like the appeals court is saying the cops don't even need "probable cause" or "reasonable suspicion" to stop you.

I suspect if the Founders were alive today they would tell us, that is why they gave us the 2nd Amendment.

Source

Federal court: OK for cops to lie -- sometimes

Kevin Johnson and Brad Heath, USA TODAY 1:32 p.m. EDT April 1, 2016

Is it OK for a cop to lie?

A federal appeals court, considering a drug trafficker's conviction in Montana, ruled earlier this week that sometimes it doesn’t matter.

Attorneys for Hector Magallon-Lopez argued that crucial evidence at the man's 2012 trial — two pounds of methamphetamine seized in a 2012 search of his car — should have been excluded because the police officer lied about why the suspect’s vehicle was being stopped.

The officer told Magallon-Lopez that he had failed to signal properly before changing lanes, an intentional ruse so as not to arouse suspicion about the true nature of the stop.

The real reason for the stop, according to court records, emerged from a Sept. 27, 2012, Drug Enforcement Agency wiretap intercept, which indicated that two Hispanic males, one bearing a distinctive arm tattoo depicting a ghost and skull, would be transporting a supply of methamphetamine from Washington state to Minneapolis.

According to the intercept, the route would take the two men traveling in "green, black or white'' car with Washington plates through Bozeman, Mont., between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Sept. 28.

Police set up a surveillance operation on the main interstate running through Bozeman. And around 3 a.m., officers spotted a green Volkwagen Passat with Washington plates, registered to Hector Lopez at an address in the Yakima Valley where, according to the wiretap, the drug shipment was to originate.

The sighting set in motion the traffic-stop ruse, when officers observed that one of the occupants — Magallon-Lopez — sported what appeared to be a ghost or "grim reaper'' on his right forearm, while the other man was identified as Juan Sanchez whose name was first disclosed on the wiretap intercept. A subsequent search of the vehicle resulted in the seizure of methamphetamine hidden in a compartment under the trunk.

"The details that the officers confirmed before making the stop sufficed to establish reasonable suspicion,'' Judge Paul Watford of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals wrote in the opinion supporting the officers' action. "Green, black or white passenger car with Washington plates? Check. Traveling eastbound through Bozeman, Mont., on the correct date and during the predicted, quite narrow time frame? Check. Occupied by two Hispanic males? Check. Registered to an owner who lived in a town associated with the investigation and who, at least in terms of stature, fit the description of the person expected to be accompanying Sanchez? Double check.

"That the officer lied about seeing Magallon-Lopez make an illegal lane change does not call into question the legality of the stop,'' Watford wrote. "The standard for determining whether probable cause or reasonable suspicion exists is an objective one; it does not turn either on the subjective thought processes of the officer or on whether the officer is truthful about the reason for the stop.''

In a concurring opinion, Judge Marsha Berzon acknowledged some distress in reaching the same conclusion.

"Is it fine for police officers flatly to tell the drivers they stop that they observed — or thought they observed — a traffic violation when they really did not?'' Berzon wrote. "We hold today that it is. And I cannot disagree, as the line of (prior) cases...seems to lead to ineluctably to that distressing conclusion...So long as the facts known to the officer establish reasonable suspicion to justify an investigatory stop, the stop is lawful even if the officer falsely cites as the basis for the stop a ground that is not supported by reasonable suspicion.''