swillden
Regular Member
imported post
NavyLT wrote:
Consider fingerprints. Per your argument, it would be illegal for a police officer to pick up a Coke can you dropped in the garbage, dust it for prints and then search the police databases to see if you were at some crime scene. But it's not. Courts have ruled that it is legal for police to search garbage without a warrant. Having legally acquired your garbage, they can legally extract any and all information they can from it, including your fingerprints. Having legally acquired your fingerprints, there's nothing restricting them from searching their database.
Basically, to make your case you have to argue that looking at the gun in his hand constitutes an illegal search by the officer. I think that's a very tough argument to make.
This is why I draw the parallel with the weed. You correctly point out that possession of marijuana is a crime (except in CA) while possession of a gun may not be. But that doesn't matter because in both cases the information about the possession comes to the officer in the same -- completely legal -- way. Once the officer has lawfully obtained that information, he has it, and he may then use it to pursue whatever other legal avenues of investigation make sense.
NavyLT wrote:
This, I believe, is the crux. What additional search are you referring to? The search of the police database? I challenge you to find anything that says you have a fourth amendment protection against that. Police can search their own databases all they want.The officer must take ADDITIONAL and UNWARRANTED action, an ADDITIONAL SEARCH in order to check that the gun is a stolen item.
Consider fingerprints. Per your argument, it would be illegal for a police officer to pick up a Coke can you dropped in the garbage, dust it for prints and then search the police databases to see if you were at some crime scene. But it's not. Courts have ruled that it is legal for police to search garbage without a warrant. Having legally acquired your garbage, they can legally extract any and all information they can from it, including your fingerprints. Having legally acquired your fingerprints, there's nothing restricting them from searching their database.
Basically, to make your case you have to argue that looking at the gun in his hand constitutes an illegal search by the officer. I think that's a very tough argument to make.
This is why I draw the parallel with the weed. You correctly point out that possession of marijuana is a crime (except in CA) while possession of a gun may not be. But that doesn't matter because in both cases the information about the possession comes to the officer in the same -- completely legal -- way. Once the officer has lawfully obtained that information, he has it, and he may then use it to pursue whatever other legal avenues of investigation make sense.