Whren v. United States
5-4
Prologue Projects
4.6 • 3.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 May 2022
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This unanimous decision holds that cops who don't deal with traffic enforcement are allowed to tail you until you commit a minor offense, and then literally dive head first into your car to nab you on an unrelated drug charge. It's just another case in a long line of Supreme Court jurisprudence that is preferential to the "I Do What I Want" brand of policing … and completely antithetical to the Fourth Amendment.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well here I'm going to argue number 95 5841, Michael A. Hoorin, and James L. Brown versus the United States. |
| 0:10.0 | The client has a very strange name. Did you not pronounce it at Hoorin? |
| 0:15.0 | Ren. Very well. You may proceed. |
| 0:18.0 | Hey everyone, this is Leon from Fiasco and Prologue projects. |
| 0:29.0 | On this week's episode of 5-4, Peter, Rianne, and Michael are talking about Ren V. United States. |
| 0:36.0 | In this case from 1996, plane closed vice-cops were patrolling an area in Washington, D.C. that they believed had a high degree of drug activity. |
| 0:46.0 | When an SUV they were watching made a turn without signaling, the officers pursued it, pulled over the driver and found crack cocaine. |
| 0:54.0 | If you have drugs and you're concerned that police might stop you, I think that it could be well-sized to obey the traffic regulations. |
| 1:00.0 | Except you're going to give rise to suspicion. This is a very unusual motorist. |
| 1:04.0 | I don't believe that that. I guess I'm not aware that at least under the regulations of the District of Columbia, |
| 1:10.0 | it would be a violation to obey all of the traffic regulations. |
| 1:16.0 | The petitioners in this case argued that the drugs were admissible as evidence because the stop had been a pretext for a search. |
| 1:22.0 | But the Supreme Court disagreed, opening a now heavily trafficked route for police using a minor traffic violation to go fishing for other crimes. |
| 1:30.0 | This is 5-4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. |
| 1:36.0 | Welcome to 5-4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have frozen our civil liberties like my Zoom freezes every recording hits. |
| 1:48.0 | Accurate. I'm Peter. Never fails. |
| 1:52.0 | I'm using my worst laptop at all times. I'm in a closet very far from the wireless receiver, the Wi-Fi receiver thing. |
| 2:02.0 | There's a lot of things I could do to improve this situation and I refuse to do any of them. |
| 2:08.0 | I'm sorry guys. Thank you for prioritizing us this way. |
| 2:12.0 | I'm here with Riannan. |
| 2:14.0 | Hey. |
| 2:15.0 | And Michael. |
... |
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