Pretextual stops are legal. The courts have said repeatedly that it’s ok for cops to stop people for one thing to facilitate mini-investigations about other things. As long as the pretext holds up — and reasonable suspicion about other things develops quickly enough — cops can turn a failure to yield into a drug bust or a lucrative seizure.
This is only one form of lying blessed by the courts. Cops can also lie to people they’re questioning to drag confessions out of them. That some of these confessions are false or completely tainted by the cops’ lying doesn’t seem to matter much. Overturned convictions and wrongful arrest lawsuits haven’t changed the criminal “justice” matrix much over…
Mar 012021
2021-03-01
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