Left Of Greg 038 Kansas v. Glover

Hey, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Brian, I'm the host of The Human Behavior Podcast. You're going to be watching the video version of our audio podcast. Please, guys, if you like the video, like it, subscribe to the channel. There's going to be more content down there. If you're already a subscriber, it was a better way for us to get you guys some more stuff. If you have any questions or comments, go ahead and leave them below. Check out our links down below to get a hold of us and to actually find out more places where you can get more information about this. Please like and subscribe, follow us on Facebook at HBPRNA. Remember, all these cases that we discuss and all these discussions that we have are through the lenses of what we call human behavior pattern recognition and analysis. So please, like it, share it, tell your friends about it, and we hope you enjoy the show. Thanks.

All right. So Greg, Sean, and I, of course, we had today. And I know before we got started on this amazing case we're going to talk about, of Kansas v. Glover, you have your usual segment of "What Grinds My Gears." Peter, welcome. I want to welcome Sean back. For all those listeners, Sean is apparently broadcasting from a barrel, a half-gallon drum barrel in his garage, but his sound quality couldn't be better.

Now, Brian, what pissed me off is everybody knows – and I'm holding up the card – you know, it was a Marine Corps birthday this past weekend, followed by Veterans Day. Thanks, everybody that was of that. And what do I, what do I read in the paper Monday morning on Veterans Day? I don't read, "Happy Birthday to the Marine Corps," and I don't read, "Thanks for all the vets that are that are in our audience." What I hear is Arianna Huffington giving a happy birthday to Anne Hathaway, to other people. Uh, you know, "November's Resilience Month here at Arcadia," and I'm just trying to tell you how hard it is staying laser-focused on resilience when so many factors in the media are against us.

For those listening, don't know who Arianna Huffington is, just substitute Ariana Grande.

I don't know, yeah. Or The Huffington Post or, you know, absolutely anything. My idea is that those who know, know, and the problem with our society right now is we're upside down with a bunch of people that are tilting at windmills and not paying attention to the real issues on the ground.

Yeah, and I thought, yeah, that's an, that's that's pop culture, I think, is going to going to be like that for forever. Oh, there's people who run still still contributing, doing what they're doing, as they always have, which which is uh what makes our country amazing. But, you know, I mean, the the counterpoint to that – not counterpoint, but yeah, I agree – it's just, you know, you're they're never going to they're going to capitalize off of other people's hard work, but they're, you know, that no one's a lot of people aren't going to give respect, but there are a lot of people out there who do, which I appreciate, and I think that's changed a lot over the last few years for fun.

And the reason we brought Sean Clements on today is because he's a lifelong friend of Anne Hathaway. So...

Oh, yeah. I'm ready to discuss.

All right. So the ultra case of, speaking of pop culture, this is uh for anyone who wants more good information about this case or the other one, you can go ahead and sign up. It's go to SCOTUSblog.org, which you have to be a huge nerd to be a member of, but that's okay, because we're talking about the Supreme Court of the United States, specifically Kansas v. Glover.

All right. So I'm just going to go over the basic facts of this case and then we'll kind of get into it from there. But uh just to go over this, the parties, meaning the State of Kansas and and Charles Glover, have stipulated to the following facts of this case. This is an important one that the Supreme Court has not decided yet, but it is up for review. While on a routine morning patrol in or around Lawrence, Kansas, Sheriff Deputy Mark Mehl saw a 1995 Chevy 1500 pickup and decided to run a check on the registration. Deputy Mehl had not witnessed, had not witnessed any traffic violations. The database check showed that the truck belonged to Charles Glover and that Glover's license had been revoked. Sheriff Mehl did not see who was driving. He assumed it was Glover, the registered owner. When Mehl stopped the truck, he discovered that Glover was, in fact, driving, and Glover was eventually charged as a habitual violator for driving with a revoked license.

Okay, so basic simple facts of the case. A police officer runs a license plate. It comes back as, you know, this, you know, the person, no, sorry, had their license had been revoked, right? So he goes, pulls him over, and it was the person, in fact, registered the vehicle. But the reason why we're discussing this case and the reason why it's gotten to Supreme Court is because there are a lot of issues with this case, right? So, you know, one of them being whether, you know, for the purpose of an investigative stop under the Fourth Amendment, it is reasonable for an officer to suspect that the registered owner of a vehicle is the one driving the vehicle absent any information to the contrary, meaning kind of what a lot of this case comes down to is can the police stop a vehicle because its registered owner's license has been suspended or revoked?

So, before we go too far, Greg or Sean, you want to give kind of a brief understanding, maybe a street definition or explanation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and how that applies?

Yeah, let me let me throw it at— I'll do the color and Sean, you do the play-by-play. Fourth Amendment basically guarantees that all people will be secure in their papers and effects, and no warrant shall issue except based on probable cause, meaning that a person goes to a judge and swears on it, and therefore you don't have to worry about intrusive, you know, unwarranted searches and seizures.

Yeah, just, I guess, and that's backed up by a lot of case law at the Supreme Court. The big, you know, the big pillar, I guess, would be the Terry v. Ohio case, right? Also known as a Terry stop, if you guys want to look up the case, you can. It's a good case, but it basically, you know, it tells about an officer has to have some type of specific facts and yes, be able to articulate those facts in order to make a stop and then make a frisk thereafter. That was decided sometime in the sixties, guys.

Yes, those early late, late sixties.

And I know we'll probably get to Terry v. Ohio again. I know that was something that immediately, I'm sure Greg as well, that I thought of on this case. But the idea was the guy's pulled over, right? He had a revoked license, and he was then arrested, but then his argument is, you know, "Hey, that shouldn't matter. The traffic stop violated," what his argument would be, "the traffic stop violated the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures because the officer lacked any type of reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed." So I think we can kind of start there, Greg.

No, no, no, and I think it's a good argument. And Sean, Sean and I went back and forth when this first came out that SCOTUS was deciding. And, and I think for the first time in 25 years of sparring with Sean, almost 30 years, I, I didn't value his side of the argument, so I'll let him make his side. My point is that drivers don't have all the privacy rights that they think. In many instances, law enforcement officers are allowed procedurally to pull over cars, and, and whenever the registered owner of her car has a revoked or a suspended license, prior to confirming that, the police officer should reasonably believe that the owner is in fact a driver behind the wheel, unless there's other factors that are in play. And, and if, if you look at this case very closely, the Kansas officer pulled over Charles Glover. He said he did it based on the hunch that the driver was in fact the owner of the vehicle. And I think that's reasonable. And if we're talking about a reasonable argument, one more argument: it's reasonable that the person driving the car, registered to you, with insurance, registered to you, is the licensed driver that's the owner of that car, right? I don't, I, I think it's a common-sense inference. I bet it's one on this.

So I originally agreed with that, real quick, before I go to you, Sean. With that same thing, right? So if I'm, you know, if a vehicle is registered to a person, that vehicle, it's likely to assume that that's the person driving. Yep. Actually, to go to the, I think the initial judge in the case said, "Well, actually, on that argument, I'm not going to agree with you on. I personally have three vehicles at my house registered to me. I only drive one of them. The other two are driven by family members, and I almost have never driven those vehicles." So I, you know, the counter-argument to that would be, "It could belong to anyone in the household." Before we get on, I mean, Sean, what would what would you have to say to that argument, or kind of so far where we're at the case?

Well, I would say, what, let's go back to the case again. We gave the facts, simple paper, you know. It was a stop based off of him running the plate and thinking or assuming that this was the driver without any other facts that he could articulate, which if he would have, maybe he would have articulated some more facts, his standard of proof may have risen to a reasonable suspicion. What I'm concerned about is that we're creating a new something new called a reasonable assumption. I'm going to basically assume that this is a driver just because the person's behind the wheel, and there, and therefore, I can run the driver's license data and assume that person is a driver, pull them over, and then arrest them for a ratio violation. So, I guess, get enough to the case, is we have to remember that the District Court ruled against the police in this caper, threw the case out. The case was taken up the next public Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals reinstated the case, said the officer had reasonable suspicion, even to lose migrants, that a reasonable assumption, I think, as well, is what the officer is saying, our hunch would be a, wouldn't rise to suspicion, at least in my eyes. I think it's more of an assumption. And then that got kicked up to the Kansas State Supreme Court, who then again knocked the case down and said and dismissed the case. So the case went back and forth. Now it's at the Supreme Court level, so it has a lot of implications to millions of drivers all over America. So people should be interested everywhere, so how this caper plays out, which will affect their, I guess, their ability to go about freely without unreasonable searches and seizures.

All right, go ahead.

Yeah. So, and that goes to the heart of kind of what the State of Kansas is arguing. Arguing, right? So they said, I'll read it here, "An officer may reasonably suspect that the registered owner of a vehicle is the driver of his or her vehicle where the officer lacks information to the contrary." Right? So, so I think that's a big part of the case is that, you know, if you run a plate or so, one's driving a vehicle, is it reasonable to assume that the person driving the vehicle is the registered owner of the vehicle? And I would, I would, I would, you know, just I'm no law enforcement experience, just me, average person on the street, I would say yes. I would say more times than not, the person who's driving a vehicle on any road and at any time is likely the owner of the vehicle. Is that, I would think that's a reasonable assumption, Greg? I don't know what your, your thoughts.

So apparently, that's SCOTUS. It's calling us now for an Iranian— I apologize. We're still working. Everybody listen. I agree with the general argument that I think I'm hearing you guys lay out that this weakens aspects of the probable cause argument. But what we're talking about here is a motor vehicle, and we're talking about a procedural task, a paperwork shuffle. And in motor vehicles and procedural tasks, the courts always recognize that there's a lesser expectation of privacy. And also, because you're driving, it's implied consent. You're consenting to the fact that if you're on a road, that you have to have all these documents in order. So it's only reasonable for a police officer routinely to say, "Hey, listen, I've done this check. No malice intended, no profile intended. It wasn't a random thing. I just happened to see a vehicle and run the plate. And, and all of a sudden, it came up as revoked, and I made the logical assumption that the vehicle's registered owner is likely the person that's driving." Now, the second part of what you said, Brian, is "absent other information," and Sean, I think that speaks directly to tinted windows or four-by-fours or, you know, nighttime, for example, where you can't see inside the car. But, but your argument, Sean, is that not only does it weaken probable cause, but I think I'm hearing, Sean, that you're also saying it weakens the ability of the police to actually look up and off the MDT (Mobile Data Terminal) and do their job.

Yeah, I think that's kind of what we're all about at Arcadia is is training and making individuals better at what they do. So I would, I would also fall back to this case, it has already been decided years ago. We were taught in the police academy a caper back in 1970, Delaware v. Prouse. Interested in looking it up, another simple caper. Police officer stops a car for no other purpose than to check the license status and the registration, procedurally as you're saying, Greg, to check down the status of that operator and that motor vehicle's registration. As he, as he gets up there, he sees marijuana in plain view, arrests the guy. The guy ends up having valid license or registration. So cases cost court rules that you can't pull somebody over to make it a routine check for license or registration absent observing some type of criminal activity or a traffic violation. That seems reasonable to me.

Okay, let me ask you this, Sean. Let's put it in the context of an equipment violation. I see the vehicle going and there's a jacket hanging out of a closed door, the trunk is loose and it's slamming, you see the taillights out. And you go, "Wow, you know, that's interesting to me. So I'm going to make a traffic stop and tell the person, 'Hey, listen, your lug nut is loose.'" Okay, those are all something normal procedural function that a law enforcement officer protecting our society on the roads would do. Now, if he does that and you flee from him, or he does that and you don't have a license or a registration, or he does that and he sees the, you know, sitting on a bale of cocaine, those would likely be allowed because it wasn't a malicious intent when he originally stopped. And I know I'm adding the malicious nature of it, but remember, most profiling leads to bad capers because profiling is, is wrong. But if it's a pretext and a profile based on a reasonable assumption, and, and when, folks, we're talking about profile, we're not talking about color of the driver, color of the car. What we're talking about is, hey, listen, at this time of night, coming down this street, in this area, when the vehicle's way down, it's always human smuggling or some other factor, and the officer has enough experience and acumen that he can testify to that and be cross-examined. And, and Sean, my thing is on this argument, if this very, very narrow, what I see is a narrow intrusion based on evidence-based, the fact that a computer told this officer, and, hey, listen, somebody that owns this vehicle is revoked, I think that that's enough because the idea is, if the case was, if it pivoted so much on the officer's observation, my question, Brian and Sean, is why didn't they call the officer to the stand to testify? The defendant was never cross-examined, being the officer's testimony wasn't even taken into consideration. So if this is such an important case on what the officer saw, smelled, felt, tasted, and I completely agree with Sean's argument on on human performance, we're trying to increase human performance, but I think this is the wrong case. I, I don't think this is the case that we should draw the line in the sand on.

Yeah, I think you're conflating the case. You said, yeah, an equipment violation. Well, that will let alone that gets the officer to stop the car, right?

Nothing.

Yeah, but we did have something. We had a computer that told the person that it was revoked.

Sean, my argument would be here, what if it was a BOLO (Be On the Look Out)? What if a BOLO came across a police radio saying, "Hey, uh, you know, heads up for suspicious activity, uh, you know, would you say, 'Well, that's that's—'"

That brings up, I think, a major part of it, and which kind of hasn't all completely been decided yet, is how we use these different technologies, right? Because just like you said, is it "be on the lookout"? If it was a license plate reader that was looking for, you know, an Amber Alert just went out, and this vehicle is identified as someone who just kidnapped a child, you know, and then they were okay with that, that technology to read that plate, identify that vehicle. But, but if that that, you know, same technology then says, "Hey, you're also behind, you know, you, you don't have a registered vehicle or you have a revoked license," now we don't like that. And, and I would liken it to same thing is with those different technology partners where, you know, you've got the, the, in, in major metropolitan cities where they can go by and scan your vehicle and, you know, "You have unpaid parking tickets, we'll give you another one," or "We'll tell you," or "You did this," but, you know, and so it's kind of almost, I think that's a big part of it is where do we draw the line in terms of liberties?

And Brian and Sean, I want to jump on both you and Brian in this one. We're talking about and that the owner of the car had a revoked license. Yes. Don't get your license revoked, right? You forgetting to pay your, yeah, get a bunch of stuff. So when I talk and yes, you're right, Sean, I did conflate it by adding stuff that wasn't in the caper or the case in chief about the equipment violation. But I think that those are lesser included. I think that once you get to a suspension or you get to a multiple suspension with a conviction, and then you get to a revocation, I think anything goes because they, that would be like a, you know, "Hey, listen, I had special knowledge that, you know, this person has driven many times and then has a revoked license," and you and I would set up for that guy to see if, in fact, he was driving. What's the difference from getting a computer hit on it and then assuming only based on the fact of that computer hit that it's the right guy? I, I think that intrusion is so small that you don't need more than a band-aid to fix it, and it should have never gone to the Supreme Court. And I know you're going to argue that one.

Well, I just think there's so many spirals there. There's so many, you know, undone ends on this case that will, you know, this is going to have a ripple effect like throwing the rock into a pond, the ripples throughout America that are going to affect people that are that are not lawbreakers. And I think that we have to maybe guard our— We have enough gimmies in law enforcement, I think, and in no way am I defending this guy. I'm not defending any bad behavior. I'm just saying we have a ton of gimmies in law enforcement that we can work our way to a traffic stop. Now we're going to rely upon automated license plate readers to now become police officers. We have police officers to think and to act, right, and use their training effectively and their training in constitutional law. We don't need to rely on computers to tell us, "Stop this car," because, like, I'm with you, to the point where he runs the dish, right? And for whatever reason, he thought, because, kids, remember it's a multiple step: you run the plate, right? And then you get the registered owner. Then you got to punch in that registered owner and get his driving status and then get his convictions, then get his, you know, there's a, his incomplete unedited driving history. So he had to do a bunch of steps where maybe if you'd have looked up or maybe he would have tied it together, said, "Hey, this is a male born in '43, and the guy I see in front of me, you know, this guy is 35 years old, there's no way this is the guy." Right? Hey, what if what speaks for the flute if he goes, the registered owner's 75 years old, this guy here is 35, and I don't know his age, I apologize. He walks up there knowing that's not the registered owner, but the Supreme Court said that I can stop these only what this computer says, it's a revoked license. I'm going to make that traffic stop, and I know it's not the guy, and then I walk up there, and then I got plain juice, and what? Delaware v. Prouse for now I've got marijuana. Now I make the arrest because, you know, he's not going to let him go as soon as he walks up there and says, "I see your license."

And Sean, I hear what you're saying, and I get that. And I get that more. Step back and take a look at Terry in the light that Terry occurred. We now have a whole bunch of spirals that came out of that that are much more positive in the light of law enforcement and personal protections as well. For example, plain view. Then we talk about plain smell. And then we talk about plain sound. These are now exceptions to the search warrant rule where an officer can articulate the facts that he smelled, tasted, felt when he was in a place under color of law that he's allowed to be. So I think that when we look at technology, technology is just another vehicle, no pun intended, that gets us closer to having a panacea of potential choices before we contact the driver. Now, there are specific rights that you have in your house and in your person and in your personal effects, but there's a less expectation of privacy rights in a vehicle. And so procedurally, if this cop— and I'll tell you right now, Sean, the one thing I do agree with you on is MDT (Mobile Data Terminal) policemen got to go. I mean, you know, the MDT should make it safe for you to walk on a traffic stop. It should be the precursor to all traffic stops and what you're feeling about and say what got my, yeah, my ire not interrupted, but that under my ire when we originally started talking about this caper, that once again, when we put the MDT and that, dating Greg, guy that's dating us because the MDTs, now they've got laptops and you know, all the computers that print tickets. And so the MDT is in our day, before there were no MDTs, and then they put the MDTs in, and it created what, like we talked, MDT pandemonium, yeah.

And, and Brian, just so you know, what I'm trying to explain is, is we had to learn in a, in a world where you had one dispatcher, and there was probably a National Crime Information Center computer that had these big reams of paper, and you could enter a serial number to a gun and all that other stuff. It was not like now where you run a date of birth and a name and all this other stuff, wants and warrants, and you can't tell how many people stopped the great. So therefore, officers were better on the street because the officer could say, "Listen, this piqued my interest because these anomalies were all over."

I think that's kind of part with what Sean was getting at here with, with the whole point of this stop was, you know, what what did he need? You know, if he had nothing else but this technology to base that stop on, then why are we relying it? We're relying on a technology then if he didn't do anything, if there were no other factors or contributing reasons why he pulled someone over. I think that's that's the issue. And to go back, even that's what what Terry v. Ohio is, if folks can can look that up. But you had a detective, guys, like, "Look, I've been a detective in this area for 30 years. This is the behavior I witnessed. This is why I stopped them," because they articulated it, Brian, very clearly.

Yeah, my argument to both of you is simply this: Charles Glover being on the road makes the road a more dangerous place for the citizens at large, for my son, for his new wife, for your kids. And therefore, Glover should not have the protection of anonymity. And even though this guy stumbled across this information and should have been doing other things, he still got there, and he didn't do it illegally.

Well, therefore, he should, he should, he still has the protection of the laws and civil liberties in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, right? I mean, you're good, you're rising that saying, "Well, he's a rule breaker or he didn't pay 'cause he got his license revoked." That's fine. But he still, he still gets the, the, the protections of the US Constitution, you know? I mean, I don't think this rises to, you know, I don't know what his driving record was or why his license was revoked, because it technically shouldn't matter in the case, right? I mean, it just, here's here's the facts, here's the circumstances of the case, I should say, and it wasn't too egregious. He only wrote him a violation, so it wasn't like this, this was a, you know, a major caper, but it turned into one, obviously. I think it's being challenged.

It should have been challenged by a driver who was operating a vehicle with a valid license and it was stopped. That, right, that's the point being argued by the government the wrong way. I think they should have on this case let the man go argue, because there's dozens, if you look up, there's dozens of these cases, yeah. When I worked the road, they were going on every day. We had the MDT police all day long.

And so, you know, Greg, you know, when you had to work with it, should be a class-action lawsuit brought by the Americans to the Liberties Union where you should be for all the good drivers out there.

And Brian, that's my, my point is that, yes, Charles Glover has the same rights, but he also has responsibilities, Brian, and therefore he knew or should have known he shouldn't have been driving. And therefore, this case doesn't hold water with me, it doesn't hold the mud. And, and so, so my thing is that anything that you argue about the computer here, I'm going, "Hey, good on the officer," based on the fact that Glover needed to get off the road. So, so I'm being, and it's not flippant, Brian, but I'm giving this a little more latitude than I would if I was stopped and I was doing everything right. I got, I got stopped, I'm not going to say the jurisdiction, but I got stopped, it's got to be five years ago now. Never knock on everything holy, never had a ticket in my life. All the times that I got stopped before this were on duty, where we were undercover, you know, following somebody or doing a surveillance, and an officer goes, "Something's not right." Those were all legit stops because we were definitely doing stuff wrong. But this one, it's a, it's a night and Nikko and I are coming back from hockey, Shelly's in the Bronco with us, and as we're driving through this one jurisdiction, this guy drives by the opposite way. And I just come back from a place that's notorious for bad things, so I had my beard and I looked really ragged, and I was tired as hell, and doing the speed limit on the side street. And the officer went zipping by at 10 miles, 15 miles an hour over the speed limit, flashed his spotlight into the cab of my vehicle, illuminated me, and clearly I looked like the guy from The Amityville Horror. You remember, a guy with the axe? And so the officer does the flip, hits the reds and blues, pulls up on me, doesn't ask for a cover car, doesn't do anything, right on the stop, and bounces up to me right away and says, "Hey, driver's license, registration." I handed him everything. I said, "Hey, why'd you stop me?" He goes, "I don't have to tell you that." Well, first of all, yeah, you absolutely do have to tell me that. What's your probable cause? I said, "You better call your supervisor, because I'm the guy that's going to test your knowledge of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment and what traffic stops are all about." If you've done nothing wrong, you should vigorously defend it. Charles Glover did something wrong, so he can, he can take a step back and, and we should be siding with capers that that have to do with the public at large that didn't do anything wrong. So Sean, I guess I'm, I'm siding with you but for a further all the wrong reasons.

Yeah, I think we're trying to argue the same point but just different, in different ways.

Precisely. You keep putting back on the implied consent. Of course, you know, the state has a right to regulate driving. When you put your name on that dotted line, yeah, and you've implied your consent to whatever they say, but shame on that legislature if they haven't passed the procedural law nicely take place in order for that officer to one, run that bit, run that license plate, and then make that stop. If they wanted to, they could, you know, we run from— In Michigan, they've passed a law, and that's all part of the procedures of your license status is that a suspended driver can't obtain a license plate. Okay? And so how about we take it one step further and say, once the driver becomes suspended, it's one entry by whoever suspended license, then you then automatically invalidate the license plate that way. It takes the police officers and their takes— yeah, and if you're going to, if you want to make police officers your procedural police officers, then give them the authority to do that and stop making this little, you know, we're trying to create a new reasonable assumption is what I'm, you know what I mean? I'm all for the police, right?

Yes.

Yeah, we're all for the police, but we want to do it the right way. We want better police officers. We don't need the MDT for the computer police out there running around, running every little license plate, and they should be looking for real bad guys in the neighborhood.

What Sean's talking about is, is that there's a lack of, there's a deficiency in the factual record of probable cause. And by diminishing that, we diminish all laws everywhere. And Sean, for that, not only do I applaud you, but I agree. And Brian, that leads right back to your argument. My point originally was that it was based on a hunch, and that there's a common sense link here that these two things are related. But I see now that your point is that what we don't want to do is, you know, accidentally weaken other right laws that that that are there to protect everybody's rights from intrusions.

Well, right, and that's things, and it goes back to, you know, obviously what you said, and I what Sean brought up about the reasonable assumption. And, and factored in there this technology, which, you know, is still relatively new, and we're still like, we don't have all the procedures like you guys are talking about, right? We don't have all these policies because these things haven't necessarily occurred or risen to that level where they need to be written yet, right? We don't know what we don't know. And so when something like this comes up, it's like, "Well, wait a minute, what is this a violation now of someone's civil liberties?" And then, then you have to take into account, "Well, wait a minute, what, what are the responsibilities of a driver on the road?" Right? Do you then if you, you know, I, I don't know, each state will likely be different, but if you have a revoked driver's license and you choose to drive anyway, I'm assuming one, you're obviously already breaking the law because that's illegal, but you're, you, you, I'm there's got to be, you know, rights that you're then giving up because you chose to endanger people, you aren't, you haven't followed the procedures of that state. How is it different than DUI (Driving Under the Influence)? How are they different than driving under the influence of drugs?

And I completely agree with you.

Well, but the cause first stop and then the assumption is so, so here's the thing. And I think, I think Glover to make, I think his attorney tried to make the argument, "Well, you know, that's the reasonable assumption that the person driving a vehicle that isn't registered or more on a revoked license." Actually, the opposite would be true. You know, if someone had a revoked license where their vehicle wasn't registered, they're less likely to drive. And then I think it was Justice Roberts said, "Actually, I would disagree with that and state back about their way," because since you've, you've clearly demonstrated that you've already willing to break the laws or rules and in the abnormal guys manner that rule is, you've already demonstrated the fact that you're because your license is revoked, you haven't followed policies and procedures so far. Bad guys likely then continue to not follow policies and procedures. So I think that reasonable assumption, I mean, that's obviously can be subjective sometimes and or taken advantage of by a good attorney maybe and, and how they were down, Sean, if they, if you, if that's kind of what you were talking about with reasonable assumption.

Yeah, I'm just, you know what I mean, reasonable assumption is an illegal standard. But it seems to be that this is going to be the standard in this case. It was always reasonable suspicion that you could articulate, and there's a reason they did put that officer on the stand. The government didn't like that guy on the stand. Exactly, back to what I think is training. If you love a trained police officer, he would be able to articulate like Terry v. Ohio because he could articulate why he did what he did.

Good. There's two reasons they didn't want him on the stand, in my view, Sean, and I think you're exactly right. One, because he couldn't articulate past the fact that he learned how to type into a computer and the computer would tell him what to do. But I think the second reason is because then they'll have plausible deniability when this case fails and goes back and is remanded down to a lower court. They can say, "Oh, well, you know what? We didn't lay the foundation, and because this officer's testimony wasn't there, that's why we recused ourselves from deciding on the case," which is a way of saving face. So I want to ask both of you big brains, if you're thinking about this case, the reason I thought about it the way I did is what about facial recognition capers? And they're coming. And sooner or later, it's not unlike this, you know, officer never observed the guy doing anything, but he gets notified by pager that says, "You know, 214 has a warrant for his arrest." How is that different from the big picture?

But that and there still has to be and this is what comes down to. All right, let's take this case specifically. It wouldn't have been a case if this officer then, you know, that it pinged on his computer, whatever, "Oh, that vehicle license revoked." All right. Would it be now if he then looked at the description of Mr. Glover and then drove alongside the vehicle and made an observation saying he, he fits the general height-weight description of this, he met that photo is close enough, looks like the guy driving the vehicle, I can now then pull him over, and there wouldn't be a thing, right? Because I observed. But that goes into just did.

Yes, you just did is create a new standard that's not on the law.

So, so I will agree with you that probable cause needs to be the standard, but we're in a new age of digital reasoning. And what I'm saying is that was it enough for him to know that the license was revoked, which he, he knew? It's like a fellow officer, after David, a computer is something that you can rely on, and then the intrusion was minor. So he pulled it over, walked up, and said, "Yes or no, are you the registered owner driver?" And at that point, if it was his daughter, the daughter could have easily said, "That's my dad's car," or whatever else. I think it's a reasonable intrusion. It's a low-level. We know that the officer doesn't walk away if he does say, "No, it's Misses and this isn't the guy." Do you think in all honesty, but it's also going to turn around and go, "Well, thank you, have a great day," and hand them back their license if they think something's going on. Is that just another way into the vehicle is what I'm saying?

Yes, yes. Can it be abused to do it the right way? Can it be abused? Yes, and the problem is it'll make cops dumber. It'll make cops less responsible, I think.

Yeah, but here's the only thing, I agree with you, Sean. I'm violently in agreement where this could spiral out, and I think Brian is too. But my thing is, when we're talking about motor vehicles in the Carroll decision and less expectation of privacy, in this instance with this check, I'm kind of okay with it because of the intrusion level. Now, if the intrusion level is going to be fraught with likely abuse, maybe what we need to do is tell our lawmakers, "Stop worrying about all this crap that they're doing. They spent three years on doing nothing," and, and pick a caper like this, but and say, "Okay, we are going to set some real boundaries here."

Well, and here's the thing, but I'm, 'cause then it goes down to where I feel like you're going to, we're going to talk about this case again in a different form, right? Just like we did with the guys busted with, you know, 900 pounds of marijuana that was a bad stop. But here's the thing, is that let's say it wasn't Glover driving. Let's say it was his friend and he was legally driving the vehicle, he was insured, but he had a person, 90 pounds of cocaine sitting on the passenger seat that he then observed. Would this then have been thrown out, you know, just, well, how would that have played out then if he said, "Well, no, you couldn't pull me over because, you know, you know, how does that—"

I think a better case, Brian, I think a better case that you just hinted to would have been that somebody that had the permission of the revoked driver was driving the car. Yes. For example, to get a prescription at Rite Aid. And this guy is doing everything legal, he's got his insurance, the vehicle's up to snuff. That person bringing some sort of civil suit or that person arguing this caper, I would love that because now you've got a guy that did nothing wrong, and the computer put them in the trick bag. Sean, you'd agree with that?

Yes, I think, yeah, I think we'd all agree on that.

Okay. Which I agree. I would disagree, early, what you said, that, you know, traffic stop isn't as a minor intrusion on your privacy. I, yeah, I would, I don't agree to.

Yeah, throw up, but, you know, how about my, my 17-year-old daughter? To her, that's anxiety-driven. She's nervous, she doesn't know what to do, right? So that it's a, that's a big intrusion on your day.

I, I agree. But I'm trying to tell you that people that have nothing to hide should be hiding nothing. And therefore, if an officer had a mistake, and Sean, you and I have made mistakes on the road before where we stopped a guy based on somebody's description or the vehicle was a BOLO, and we pull it over, and it's full of nuns, you know what I'm saying? And they weren't the best LBG live here.

Okay. Now, that I'll agree with. If it's the MDT lottery, explain what you mean by that. Well, you know, back when we worked the road, they were called MDT. They morphed into computers. What they called now, labs, whatever they are, but we had officers that we worked with that all day long, they would just punch in license plate, punch in license plates, punch in license plates into their MDT because they weren't allowed to do that. If you remember, Greg, before we had the MDTs, we had, we had asked for a license plate to be ran over the air. How many, how many tries did you get, Greg, on B.I.N. nights when we worked midnights, right? Shoo. If you did two and you weren't taking a felon to jail, then you weren't working midnights for very long. They would, I don't know, yes, dispatchers say, "I'm sorry, the computer's down," and that was their way of telling, you know, "Hey, get out there, keep looking, stop running plates, and get your issues out there and find a bad guy." Yeah, well, especially into work, right? Fishing, you know, fishing. And so and what would happen then to Greg? They kept trying to run them. What we do? We take our mics, we start keying up the mics, but they couldn't get through to dispatch, and they got the point real quick that this isn't what police work's about.

Yeah, but Ron, you pulled it to all you, you pulled the daughter card on me, and you make me feel like a boob now. I will pull this on you. What's the role of a supervisor on the road? What's the role of the road sergeant? What's the role of the lieutenant? Their role is to check those log sheets, their role is to listen to that radio, their role is to hold you accountable for every plate you run, because when you go up there, you are now, that's an intrusion. You running a name on a computer is an intrusion in my privacy, so you should have a good reason for doing that, I believe. And then therefore, the low level of intrusion of stopping a car once you think you have something, because that's what reasonable suspicion is, you believe that you have something. This guy believed it was revoked, and so I assumed it was, he assumed it was the driver. There was no suspicion. Suspicion would have been like Brian says, "Yeah, this family born in 1943," that, and therefore he looks the age, he fits the description. "This is my man."

And that goes back to the difference of who's what Sean brought up was a reasonable assumption. That's not, you can't, like, it has to be reason. And that because that goes back to their cases is what the state was trying to say, because they kind of reference a Terry v. Ohio case too, and they said, you know, "He initiated to stop to confirm or dispel the suspicion that Glover was violating in Kansas law." Yeah, and they said it would have been poor police work for him to let that truck, Glover's truck, continue to driving on, having known that the registered owner has a revoked license. Which, which that's that's true, right? No, now that gets into a public safety concern. So, so either way, I just think that there has to be some way because, because you're open— I can agree with that, right? I would 100% agree with like if this guy has been in 37 car wrecks and his license has been revoked for 10 years because he has done this, that, the other thing. Okay, well, public safety would deem, "Hey, that guy, if that runs, if it hits on my computer, I want to get him off the road." I think everyone— that's why it's on the computer, right?

Anyways, make the legislators pass the laws so we can the procedures is what you're saying, Greg. They're pretty general the implied consent, then they're lacking. Not that the police officer shouldn't be there to assert their authority and make and make law out on the road, is what I'm saying.

You. So I'll agree to that, Brian. I'll agree to what Sean just said. I'll agree to take the cop out of the loop because then it becomes just like a check-in-the-box thing. It becomes a laminated check-in-the-box, and it's precisely the division of the drive saying, "Those laws would have to be passed saying if a police license plate reader reads your vehicle and the registered owner of that vehicle has a revoked license, they have an obligation, you will be pulled over." Exactly. Because, because driving is a privilege, not a right. And, in, and then I would agree, and Sean, I think you would agree, that that I'm, I'm mistaken because what I'm going into this is talking about a simple procedural fix to make sure that we don't realign the language of the Constitution, because I, I hear what you're saying about reasonable assumption not being there, but I think the assumption was reasonable because of the computer technology using, and I don't think the law is caught up with it. It's just like we have horizontal gaze nystagmus to figure out a driver's been drinking, but we're, we're infants when it comes to testing for nystagmus from from onset of conversions that goes into right what you're talking about with a lot of laws with how do we test someone who, how do we know if someone's under the influence of marijuana? Like very easily standard for alcohol, we have, you know, every test that's been established for a long time. So what is it now? We're passing laws before the enforcement get up to them. And so, so let's let's let's go on to that, that next part then. Let's take both sides. What if what if this comes down saying, "Hey, no, that was that's now, you know, that's not a leak, that's not a reason to stop the vehicle or pull them over or have that intrusion of privacy," or it is depending on which way the Supreme Court goes. What are the spirals that occur from there, right? Where will this lead to in terms of legal precedent?

Yeah, and, and, and I think Sean has a point that we need to bring up. Sean brought up some, some scar tissue. You know, Brian, understand that if you did overtime for going to court, and your overtime went across so many minutes, it rounded up to the next hour. So you'd get like double time and a half. And so you'd have officers that'd be working your jurisdiction that their only job was to go out there and troll, that's why we called it fishing, until they found a likely candidate for driving while suspended, second, which was exactly. And, and so you got a court misdemeanor that meant that you got guaranteed time, and you'd have a, you know, be able to buy a bike for your kid for Christmas, well, sitting in court instead of doing your job. So what they would do is you'd have these conference these unscrupulous officers that would go out and make 25 or 30 traffic stops, many times not even calling them in until they had the guy. And they, you know, "I don't have my license. I have did you know?" "Whoa!" Now I got a candidate. Then they would run that guy, and sure enough, he'd come back, and they you'd hear them right away say, "Yeah, I need that print it out and, you know, stick it in my bin box because I know I'm going to court." Then they would pad these court dates, and that's all they did. They didn't care of the calls that were going out, the calls for service, they didn't care about self-initiated field activity, and the felons ran the streets. That's wrong. I think this case is emblematic of what could be, I think if you were rely too much on on the the computers, what's happening is you're looking down and in and set that up up and out, Brian. And I think that's a fear that I would have, and I bet Sean would echo that fear, but I also follow. But I want to make sure that driving is a privilege, not a right. So therefore, if you intend to get behind the wheel of a car, then there are certain things that you should expect from law enforcement that that now need to be codified that weren't before.

Yeah, but I think we're, yeah, I would agree. But I think we're skipping a step. We're not there yet, and, and because the legislators have have shirked their responsibilities, I believe it puts the officers in a bad light. I agree when we're running around being the MDT police and not being the real police, then we have cases like this. These are the extreme edges of the law. The Constitution gives us great latitude. Terry v. Ohio is a great one, and so it shows us what what case law can be. And this one here, I just think is going to set a bad precedent, and it's going to create a lot more computer police if it goes, obviously, if it goes the government's way, it's going to create more computer police. And what I'm saying is, I'm okay with all the tools the police officers have, right? I think we need this tool, and if we do, if we do want to stop a suspended driver, then I guarantee you you should be able to articulate why you stopped them. Use their own suspicion doctrine, and stop relying on a computer, or guess what, just wave them by.

Computer confirmed your suspicions.

That that's what it comes down to as well with any technology is, is are we using, are we relying on the technology? Are we relying on the human with, with the technology as a tool? Because I think that that goes to what Sean was talking about, a lot of that then it becomes just reliant on this machine. And then now that atrophies a number like you just just connect with law enforcement experience. But it, but it relies on that, and now it's not on human judgment. And there, and now it becomes that. Now this could get into a number of different areas, but, but I think, you know, not relying simply on that technology, just using it as a tool or some part of your investigation or some part of why, because another tool in the toolbox, you can't just rely on that stuff because now that's going to lead to, you know, ever people getting pulled over and it, let's say it is someone who's just innocently driving down there, down the road. Now that's an invasion of their privacy. Now what happens to them because of this this new law or new rule or new technology? I think that's where it gets into. And in all of these cases, I agree with what you said, Greg, it should, you know, this should be a different case, meaning if the guy, if it was his brother who had a perfectly clean driving record, and it was legally operating that vehicle, and he's insured, that this wouldn't as be as much of a discussion, but it, it still has to be because now I, I mean, your, your, your, we're kind of starting to skate on thin ice there when it comes to civil liberties and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Yes.

So, let me, can I give you a better case, Brian? And, and I know we're getting near the, the closing remarks. So if you're going— I think it's, but if you allow me, okay, let me throw a good case at you. So you've got Al-Assad v. McAlene in, in Boston. And yesterday, the federal court in Boston ruled that suspicionless searches of travelers' electronic devices by federal agents at airports and at other US ports of entries are patently unconstitutional. So what they were in a policy of doing is if you were coming from out— Oh, count us out of the country, yeah, they would just randomly grab your phone, your iPad, take a look at who you've been calling with no other suspicion. Now, to me, if you're talking about a, a lawsuit about electronics and about, yeah, you know, digital devices and everything else, this is the one that is the kind of thing you can get behind. Now, many people right now are cringing at home going, "Hey, wait a minute, that's how we find terrorists." No, you find terrorists by doing good police. Good police are things called artifacts and evidence. So I know I sound dichotomous, but I want to, I want to defend on Kansas and Glover. I want to defend my point there saying that procedurally, I think it was a low-level intrusion, and I know I'm still getting beat up over that.

Yeah.

Here, when somebody's going to go into my phone or my iPad or my computer, that's a high-level intrusion, and you best come armed with bare before you do that because you can't judge. Now, we're talking different on on a, Sean, for example, if we're doing a drug search warrant, and the search warrant says that, you know, the papers and documents and the computer records and all that, and you're at the house, guess what, you're in the trick bag. I'm looking at your phone. But here we were talking about a bordered search with no probable cause, no suspicion whatsoever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a huge jump from the caper we're in here. That's probably for another one, 'cause that's that, that's going to be a, that's going to have huge ripples as well. And I obviously support you there too. We find bad guys by going to look for evidence, and that's the best way to find them that rooting through people's iPhones.

And back to the iPhone, what Brian was about technology, has, has technology made people more observant or less observant? I'm arguing the same thing for police officers. The technology pulls us into the technology rather than looking up and out and looking at our environment where we can find those reasonable suspicions and then and then articulate them.

Yeah, so we're working on the good side is what I'm saying. We shouldn't lose our privacy rights when we're on an iPhone. We shouldn't lose our privacy rights when we're on a bicycle or in a car or walking, as long as we're right riding our bike or walking within the law, you know?

And, and you don't lose them even if you're a criminal. You still have the same basic rights. But I think that the, the overall goal of my being on today's podcast was to make sure that we don't endorse suspicionless fishing, but we also don't create this monster that can be handled with us with that swing of a gavel, you know?

And that goes into everything we kind of brought up, especially with Sean, and just you reiterated it with that the case you just brought up right now too, is that that technology should be used as an, as an aid. There's no way we have this tool now, we have this capability, this is what we've got now. Well, no, you still artifact one more evidence. Yes, yeah, that that's, you know, should be used in conjunction with, with something else. And that's I brought up the example of, "Okay, I got a ping on this license plate. I have to confirm this. I have to have some other probable cause and say this is likely the individual," because I would humanely disagree with you saying getting pulled over by law enforcement is a minor intrusion. That, that absolutely minor hue, I would disagree with that. I think that would, that would be a major intrusion into your civil liberties, your ability to pass freely in just in this country alone. I, I think that's uh now, now the, they might be pulling you over in whatever the reason, right? So, whether it's in terms of public safety, like this guy getting pulled over because he had a revoked license for whatever reason, okay, well, I guess that's in terms of public safety, but it wasn't serious enough for you to pull him out of the vehicle and arrest him right there, you know? It so, so why was it serious enough for them to even have that intrusion, right? So I think this is kind of a not, not as you said, not, not the best case to use at all.

Yeah, go ahead, Greg.

No, no, no, you can go.

I just wanted to throw in, we didn't really talk about it, but, you know, ultimately, you know, how these laws that are decided by men and women in black robes ultimately affect us little folk down on the roads, not in America. And there are, there are more neighborhoods that, you know, there are a lot of neighborhoods obviously in inner cities if you've worked in an inner city or living in inner city, and I know where I grew up in, I didn't grow up in a neighborhood, and neither did you, that laws seem to affect us a little disproportionately. And it's, it makes it a little more difficult out there, and I'm, I'm not trying to turn this into a whole societal discussion, but we have to work within our society constructs of the Constitution. How is it that's why it's a living breathing document, that's why it moves and it grows and it changes for each one of us. And, and, and that's all I'm saying, Sean.

Where we grew up, if you were going to go into a bar, a nightclub, or you were going to go into an arena for a sporting event, and Brian, you're part of this too because this is the same in Chicago as it was in Detroit, you're going to get your bag checked, you're going to go head it down, ready to go through a metal detector. That's an intrusion. But if you don't want to go into that place, you don't have to consent. So, right. The difference in driving and driving, you're implying that you are consenting to any of those things that are going to happen to you. So a traffic stop to find out if you were a revoked driver, to me, is a low-level intrusion. I just want to make sure that you understood my point is what I was trying to say is that in our family, we had hand-me-down cars, and we didn't have enough to go transfer the plate. And, you know, you're supposed to transfer that plate, but the legend have the money to transfer that plate, then you don't transport. So we didn't own an actual vehicle in her family's name till I was 13, you know? And we had like a birthday cake to celebrate that, and we had hand-me-down vehicles. And so was my uncle suspended? I have no idea. I have no idea. But my mom was driving that, my dad was driving it, and I just, what I'm, we have to produce police officers that are a little better than this is what I'm trying to say. A little more trained, a little more observant.

I agree with that. But I'm adding to that, Sean, that I think it's a function of the administration and leadership of that agency to hold their officers accountable. And, and I think that I would protract that out and say it's a responsibility of the legislature, of the lawmakers, to make good laws that are easy to enforce and that the people think are reasonable. Because if they're not reasonable on their face, you know what I'm saying, that this is going to become case law, good, bad, or indifferent, right? It's going to become case law, and they should have picked a better caper.

You know, I couldn't agree more. We, this is the best, this is the best part what we've agreed. I think we all, yeah, that this is the absolute worst caper. Why the government got behind this case, Greg? I have no idea. I, I now, would it again if that—

I think, well, yeah, I would agree with that. It's a bad caper for them to get behind. Why is this all, why did this make it all the way up to the Supreme Court? Exactly. If it'd have been dealt with right away at a lower level where they went, "You know what, that less, it's not worth the time and effort on this one. Let's use it on the next one where it's worth it," because, exactly, and to plug this hole, Brian, yeah, this whole training changes behaviors, right? That law enforcement officer would have been better trained, then we wouldn't be having this discussion, because even if you got a ping on a revoked, if and remember, Sean said, this is more screens, it wasn't the very first thing that he ran, and it came back revoked. He had to go in deeper a little bit. If he would have been that zealous on finding probable cause and artifacts and evidence to support his conclusion, we wouldn't be having this argument.

Yeah, one second. Who knows? It's an older model vehicle with this guy. If he's a, if he's a rule breaker and has been his whole life, then you could probably find something on that vehicle that's worthy of a stop. Say, "Hey, he's going to do something wrong," or you can follow the line. He's not going to use a signal, whatever the issue is, you'll get it. So I just think that extra effort, but and, and again, we about table up the next day just, yeah, obviously he's going somewhere, and he's probably going to be moving about the next day too. So meet him at the same bat-time, same bat-channel.

And Sean just said to our loyal listeners out there is the gift of time and distance. Yep. Being prudent and slowing time down and saying, "Listen, probable cause doesn't diminish." So if we see him again tomorrow driving, then it's clear that he's a scofflaw.

Yeah, no, I totally agree that, and then submit the work for the day before also. If you do find out, then you've got if you were so, if you had such a, you know, yeah, you know, you were so hard up to get this guy, then you could also seek the warrant for the day prior and end the day that you got him. Now your probable cause is the warrant, and that's what the court wants you to do is not do warrantless affidavits, right? So now you're, you're right, right on, Chuck. So now we don't mean the new law, what you're talking about is going back to the same old law and doing good points. We're kind of ground.

Yeah, there's more than one way to skin a cat, right? So I've, so I've been told.

I'm still never skinned a cat before my life, but I've heard that term in a number of places, and everyone keeps saying different variations, but I, I think that's it, that's a, that's a good, good point. And I know we could keep going on with, with this in case law for a while, but I think this is a good one to highlight a number of issues. One, especially with, you know, technology use still comes out, all these, all of these cases that we've discussed comes down to, you know, because once again, this is another case we discussed where the police officer pulled over the guy who was doing something wrong. So, so the guy was clearly breaking the law. And, and it just, what if he had taken that extra time? Or what if he had done one more step? Or just getting that, just like we talked about that time, that time and distance, and we can go on forever. You know, who knows? That guy you might have been has 37 other things to do, and then, you know, overworked, and this, right? We don't even know, but we're just just taking the on the facts of the case, more that leads to is that look, this is what happens. Then, then you get a crap case that makes its way up to the Supreme Court, and all you had to do was take that extra step. And I'm not admonishing him, I'm certainly not going to Monday Morning Quarterback the police officer doing it, but just talking about from the legal standpoint, this is then what happens, and we forget that sometimes when we're out there, right? That, you know, this is what it could possibly lead to. So, good old road.

Ops. Brian, keep your old road cops. You do not want your name on case law, am I, what am I saying the gospel there? So give yourself the gift of time and distance, and training changes behavior.

All right. I think that was a good, that's a good spot to kind of end unless there's something else you guys want to add.

No, try my work in a pod, buddy. Yeah, thank you. Got any state reps that are out there, try my idea. How about with the suspended drivers, we cancel their plate as soon as they become suspended? End of discussion. Yeah, it's in there, and there it takes the onus off the cop and the motor vehicle department, and puts the onus on the driver owner. Go in and get it, get it corrected, and guess what, all the money, the funding has to come from that guy or girl. The plate, you're exactly right.

It's a good point, though. The state wins, the officers win, and society at large wins.

Oh, come on, man. But the bad guy keeps losing. I still got that ankle bracelet on. I can't leave my box here.

So, Ari, thanks for coming down to Sean. All right, thanks for everyone. Hey, remember everybody, November's Resilience Month here at Arcadia. We love you.