Wednesday, April 22, 2015

No Dogs Were Used in the Making of this Traffic Stop

Good news from the Supreme Court for a change: they ruled 6 to 3 yesterday that police can't call in dogs to sniff cars for drugs during traffic stops without probable cause. The decision was written by the Notorious RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg), and is one of the few in recent years to cite my beloved Fourth Amendment.

I tried to predict which three justices voted in the minority, and I went with Scalia, Thomas, and Alito. I assumed Kennedy (the supposedly libertarian-leaner) and Roberts would be the two conservatives who joined with the reasonable wing, made up of Ginsburg, Kagan, Breyer, and Sotomayor.

Well, knock me over with a feather -- Kennedy voted in the minority, while Scalia voted with the majority! Scalia and Thomas split their votes, which I guess is not that unusual, but seldom seems to happen in high-profile cases.

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