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Right now, cops can easily track and pull over millions of people not because theyre swerving or speeding, but because theyre driving a car registered to a person with a suspended license. But that doesn't mean the driver is the one with the suspended license.

The Supreme Court could soon put an end to those traffic stops to uphold drivers Fourth Amendment rights, which protect against unreasonable searches or seizures.

The case, Kansas v. Glover, addresses whether cops can pull someone over because the car theyre driving is registered to someone with a suspended license. To initiate these stops, police rely on the assumption that a cars driver is also its owner, but drivers often share cars with their family members or friends. And being pulled over can subject them to searches or arrests they may not have otherwise had to deal with.

Thats especially dangerous for people of color, according to advocates. Black men like Philando Castile, Walter Scott, and Samuel Debose were shot and killed by police in what started as routine traffic stops.

The consequences for black drivers here are enormous when an officer is operating on an assumption that may or may not be true, said said Lisa Foster, the co-director of the Fines and Fees Justice Center, which participated in a brief urging the Supreme Court to put an end to the stops. We know that black drivers get pulled over in some studies, at ten times the rate of white drivers; we know black drivers are more likely once theyre pulled over to be searched.

Police say pulling someone over for a suspended license is necessary because the driver might be actively committing a crime, and the officer can always let the person go if theyre wrongly identified. Officers also want to be able to freely use automatic license plate readers which have become standard in even the smallest police departments over the last decade to pull someone over when its too difficult to manually scan a license plate, search for a description of the driver, and match that description.

But at least 11 million licenses across the country are suspended solely because of unpaid court or traffic debts and not because the indebted person is a dangerous driver, according to the Free to Drive campaign. That doesnt even include people who have lost their licenses over unpaid child support, minor drug crimes, or other non-traffic offenses.

The consequences for black drivers here are enormous."

Before automatic license plate readers, cops often only discovered a drivers license was suspended after they had pulled them over for some other traffic violation. And if the Supreme Court affirms the practice of pulling over anyone suspected of driving with a suspended license, police will essentially have a database of cars ready to stop, according to William Maurer, the managing attorney for the Institute for Justices office in Washington state. The non-profit law firm joined with the Fines and Fees Justice Center in urging he Supreme Court to reconsider the stops.

It creates a two-tiered justice system: People who are able to afford the fines and fees debt that accompany things like traffic tickets and parking tickets will not feel this intrusion, Maurer said.

The case stems from a 2016 traffic stop where a Kansas police officer scanned the license plate of a pickup truck and noticed it was registered to a person with a suspended license. Based on the assumption that the owner of the truck was also the person driving the car, the officer pulled over Charles Glover Jr., who wasnt committing any other traffic violation. It turned out the car was Glovers, and he was cited for driving unlawfully.

But Glover appealed, arguing his Fourth Amendment rights were violated because the officer didnt have a good enough reason to pull him over. The car couldve just as easily been driven by someone who wasnt Glover, but the officer wouldnt have had any way of knowing until they had already initiated the traffic stop. The Kansas Supreme Court took Glovers side, but the state appealed to the Supreme Court.

If the Supreme Court were to rule in Glovers favor, several state attorneys general, the National Fraternal Order of Police, and even the Trump administration argue that public safety would be put at risk. But if the decision is struck down, they say cops will have the official greenlight they need to to make more routine traffic stops and keep suspended drivers off the road.

During arguments earlier this month, the Supreme Court appeared to lean toward the side taken by police and prosecutors. Justices, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., said that officers use common sense when they assume the driver of a car is also its owner and shouldnt have to rely on much else.

Reasonable suspicion does not have to be based on statistics, it does not have to be based on specialized experience. As we've said often, it can be based on common sense, Roberts said.

Cover image: Policeman pulls over a driver for speeding, getting out of police car to write a traffic ticket. (kali9 via Getty Images)

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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Cops Can Pull Drivers Over Who Aren't Breaking the Law. The US Supreme Court Could Change That. - VICE

A 13-count federal indictment filed in court Thursday charges James W. Millegan, 62, a former Oregon securities broker, with investment account churning and tax evasion.

Millegan of McMinnville owned and operated J.W. Millegan Inc., an investment advisory business that served clients in the Portland and Salem metropolitan areas.

From March 2010 through May 2017, Millegan is accused of having bought and sold securities for clients investment accounts to generate commissions for himself. He generated more than $2.5 million in trading commissions while he cost 12 investors more than $4.3 million in unrealized investment gains, according to prosecutors.

Millegan also is accused of not paying more than $3.3 million in taxes between July 2006 and September 2016. He allegedly transferred funds to hidden bank accounts to conceal his multimillion dollars in commissions.

Millegan has not yet appeared in federal court.

The charges come more than two years after federal authorities executed a search warrant and raided Millegans home at gunpoint and took his client files, according to his lawyer. Millegan is set to make his first appearance in U.S. District Court in Portland on Dec. 6.

Mr. Millegan will appear in court as required and looks forward to clearing his name,'' said his lawyer, Oregon Federal Defender Lisa Hay. "In litigation that has already occurred, weve successfully addressed government over-reaching, failure to return property, and apparent violation of the Fourth Amendment. We look forward to continuing to protect Mr. Millegans constitutional rights and to vigorously challenging the governments allegations.

The litigation surrounding his lawyers challenge of the search warrant and seizure of Millegans files remains sealed.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian http://twitter.com/maxoregonian

Visit subscription.oregonlive.com/newsletters to get Oregonian/OregonLive journalism delivered to your email inbox.

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Former Oregon securities broker charged with investment fraud, tax evasion - OregonLive

Federal prosecutors will not pursue charges against the U.S. Park Police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Bijan Ghaisar, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Nov. 14.

The decision came almost two years after Officers Alejandro Amaya and Lucas Vinyard shot Ghaisar five times at the conclusion of a car chase on George Washington Memorial Parkway prompted by a reported hit-and-run crash in Alexandria.

Based on the information available at this time, the Department cannot prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the two USPP officers committed willful violations of the applicable federal criminal civil rights statue when they shot Mr. Ghaisar, the Justice Department said in a press release.

The investigation conducted by the departments civil rights division, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia, and the FBI confirmed that Amaya and Vinyard engaged Ghaisar in a vehicular pursuit starting at approximately 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 17, 2017.

The pursuit stopped at the intersection of Fort Hunt Road and Alexandria Avenue in Alexandria, where the two Park Police officers shot Ghaisar multiple times while he was in the drivers seat of his vehicle.

The 25-year-old McLean resident spent 10 days in a coma at Inova Fairfax Hospital before he was taken off life support on Nov. 28, 2017.

Details of the incident beyond those basic circumstances did not start to emerge until Jan. 24, 2018 when the Fairfax County Police Department released video footage captured by the in-car camera of a county police officer who joined in the pursuit to provide back-up if needed.

The four-and-a-half minute-long recording showed that U.S. Park Police officers fired nine shots after cornering Ghaisars SUV. A subsequent Fairfax County police investigation determined that none of the departments officers discharged their weapons.

According to the Justice Department, FBI investigators interviewed more than 150 individuals, including law enforcement officers from both the Park Police and Fairfax County, to determine whether the park police officers actions that night violated any federal laws.

When deciding whether to file charges, prosecutors looked at possible violations of a federal criminal civil rights statue that prohibits the willful deprivation of a persons rights, privileges, or immunities protected by the U.S. Constitution, in this case the Fourth Amendment right to not be subjected to unreasonable search and seizure.

To establish a violation of the statute, the Justice Department says it would be required to prove the officers involved in the shooting had used constitutionally unreasonable force with intent to disregard the law.

An officer acting out of fear, mistake, panic, misperception, negligence, or poor judgment would not meet the level of intent that courts require in their interpretation of the statue, according to the department.

The Department is unable to disprove a claim of self-defense or defense of others by the officers, the DOJ said. Accordingly, the Department has closed its investigation into this matter.

The decision to not prosecute the officers involved in Ghaisars death was the latest frustrating development for the accountants family and friends, who have criticized the U.S. Park Police and federal investigators for failing to provide transparency and accountability.

Ghaisars family called the Department of Justices decision to not prosecute Amaya and Vinyard cowardly.

The Justice Department has given us no answers to why Bijan was killed, Ghaisars family said in a statement. Instead they have broken every promise made to us from keeping us informed about the investigation to personally sharing the results before broadcasting it to the world to, most importantly, protecting Bijan.

The Park Police placed Amaya and Vinyard on administrative leave with pay after the shooting pending the conclusion of the FBIs investigation, but the federal government did not publicly release their names until this past March after Ghaisars family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the 10 officers they identified as being responsible for the McLean residents death.

Amaya and Vinyard were named as the officers who apparently fired shots, but the remaining seven officers listed in the lawsuit remain unidentified.

The lawsuit is still underway in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria, and with the Justice Department not pressing charges, the Park Police will now move forward with its own internal investigation of Amaya and Vinyard, according to The Washington Post.

Ghaisars family and friends marked the two-year anniversary of his death on Nov. 17 with an emotional rally and candlelight vigil outside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

In addition to acquaintances of Ghaisar, the gathering drew local, state, and federal politicians and representatives from civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, Mothers against Police Brutality, and Amnesty International.

The Ghaisar family has experienced so much pain over the last two years, not just in coping with the loss of their beloved son and brother Bijan, but also in trying to understand what led to his death, Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a joint statement. Todays announcement by the Department of Justicewill only add to this familys heartbreak.

Warner and Grassley said they would be formally requesting a briefing on the decision to not pursue charges in Ghaisars case from the Justice Department within the next 30 days.

Warner joined Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) in sending a letter to the FBI in January 2018 asking for an update on the status of the bureaus investigation. The FBI responded that April that it would not discuss an active investigation.

After joining the Ghaisar familys Lincoln Memorial vigil, Beyer, fellow Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) and D.C. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Nov. 18 calling for him to authorize local authorities to release 9-1-1 recordings connected to the fatal shooting.

Beyer previously made the same request in a letter on Mar. 26, 2018.

We found the two-year period it took to resolve the case unacceptable and remain concerned with the result, the trio wrote in their new letter. Releasing these recordings would be an important element of rebuilding trust. The people of the National Capital Region demand high transparency and accountability standards from their local government and law enforcement entities.

When contacted by the Fairfax County Times for more information on its investigation and concluding decision, a Department of Justice public information officer directed media inquiries to the U.S. Attorneys Office in D.C.

Thank you for your inquiry, District of Columbia U.S. Attorneys Office public information officer Kadia Koroma said. However, we have no comment outside of what was issued in the press release.

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Justice Department will not prosecute officers in Bijan Ghaisar shooting - Fairfaxtimes.com

The 4th Amendment aims at protecting Americans from irrational seizures and searches. A search is any government intrusion into something in which somebody has a rational expectation of privacy. A seizure on the other hand, takes place when the government detains a person or takes possession of items.

The Fourth Amendment also requires any warrant to be sustained by probable cause and be judicially authorized. A probable cause is the grounds by which a law agent or officer has the basis to obtain a warrant for arrest, conduct a search, or make an arrest when considering criminal charges. The amendment was espoused in reply to the misuse of the writ assistance (a form of general warrant in the American-Revolution).

The British government used to grant general search powers to British law enforcements, enabling them to conduct searches in any home they wanted, at any time with or without a reason. The Founding Fathers did not like this concept. The 4th amendment was included into the Bill-of-Rights, so as to uphold the security and privacy of individuals against prejudiced raid by the government and its officials.

According to this amendment any warrant should be judicially sanctioned for an arrest or a search. For the warrant to be regarded as reasonable, it should have a probable cause supporting it in addition to it being restricted in capacity, according to precise information provided by a law-enforcement-officer who has affirmed by it.

The amendment applies to searches and seizures by the government, but not to those conducted by private organizations or citizens. Initially, the Bill-of-Rights restricted the Federal Government only, but as from 1961 the Supreme Court decreed that the 4th amendment was applicable to the States through the Due-Process-Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Over the years, the Supreme Court realized that there are some circumstances and environments that would require an exception to the probable cause requirement. These scenarios are referred to as special need exceptions that allow searches without warrants.

Usually a search without warrant is conducted in a circumstance where a law-enforcement-officer personally witnesses a person committing a misdemeanor, or when the officer has a rational cause to consider that the suspect has committed a documented felony. Another exception scenario is when a person allows a search to be conducted, regardless of whether he or she is unaware of his or her right to refuse to cooperate. Open fields such as woods and pastures are also not covered by the 4th Amendment, provided that a search done therein would not have any logical expectation of privacy. Moreover, searches conducted at the U.S. border or in an international airport can be conducted with no probable cause or warrant, subject to the border-search exception.

One of the major ways that courts enforce the 4th Amendment is through the use of the exclusionary rule. This law provides that evidences acquired by violating the 4th amendment are not acceptable by the prosecution during a criminal trial. The Court adopted this rule in 1914, in the Weeks vs. United States case, prior to which any evidence regardless of how it was obtained was admissible in court.

Primarily, the exclusionary rule serves to prevent police officers from deliberately violating a suspects 4th Amendment rights. The underlying principle in the exclusionary rule is that the police would not violate the 4th amendment, if they know that evidence acquired through violation of this amendment is not usable when convicting someone of a crime.

Since society criticizes crime while still valuing liberty, there will always a pressure between the privacy of individuals and the interests of law enforcement. Modern society has made it easier for criminals to hide crime, making it difficult for law enforcement to keep up. This sometimes has necessitated the use of investigative techniques that trample on 4th Amendment rights and privacy expectations of innocent citizens.

As the U.S. and state governments continued to grow in the 20th century, the amount of information that the governments collect also increased. When the government collects information for administrative purposes such as tax collection and issuing licenses, the government does not have to gratify the 4th Amendment. Unfortunately, this information is sometimes used by investigators, misused by rogue government employees or released by government agencies. This in turn violates the fourth amendment rights of citizens as well as their expectations of privacy.

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4th Amendment to the Constitution - U.S. Amendment IV Summary

The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any search warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It is part of the Bill of Rights. The Fourth amendment was adopted in response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, a type of general search warrant issued by the British government. It was a major source of tension in pre-Revolutionary America. The Fourth Amendment was introduced in Congress in 1789 by James Madison, along with the other amendments in the Bill of Rights.[1] They were proposed in response to Anti-Federalist objections to the new Constitution.[2]

Congress sent 12 amendments to the states in August of 1789.[3] Of these, 10 were approved by the states. The last state, Virginia ratified the amendments (including the fourth amendment) on December 15, 1791.[3] On March 1, 1792, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson announced the adoption of the amendment.

The Bill of Rights did initially apply to the states. Also, federal criminal investigations were less common in the first century of the nation's history. For these reasons there is little case law for the Fourth Amendment before the 20th century. The amendment was held to apply to the states in Mapp v. Ohio (1961).

Under the Fourth Amendment, search and seizure (including arrest) should be limited in scope to specific information supplied to the issuing court. This is usually by a law enforcement officer who has sworn by it. Fourth Amendment case law deals with three central questions. What government activities constitute "search" and "seizure"? What constitutes probable cause for these actions? How should violations of Fourth Amendment rights be addressed? Early court decisions limited the amendment's scope to a law enforcement officer's physical intrusion onto private property. But with Katz v. United States (1967), the Supreme Court held that its protections, such as the warrant requirement, extend to the privacy of individuals as well as physical locations. Law enforcement officers need a warrant for most search and seizure activities. But the Court has defined a series of exceptions for consent searches, motor vehicle searches, evidence in plain view, exigent circumstances, border searches, and other situations.

The exclusionary rule is one way the amendment is enforced. Established in Weeks v. United States (1914), this rule holds that evidence obtained through a Fourth Amendment violation is generally inadmissible at criminal trials. Evidence discovered as a later result of an illegal search may also be inadmissible as "fruit of the poisonous tree," unless it inevitably would have been discovered by legal means.

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Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution - Simple ...