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D.C. Wire is reporting that MPD Chief Cathy Lanier's controversial "Neighborhood Safety Zone" checkpoint tactic has passed its first test in federal court. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon today denied a request for a preliminary injunction against the checkpoints filed by a group of District residents. In the ruling, Leon found that the checkpoints are not unconstitutional and are a reasonable crime prevention tactic to use against a specific kind of vehicle-related violent crime. This is from Leon's conclusion:
Simply put, to take this arrow out of MPD's quiver on such a weak showing as to is unconstitutionality would be injurious not only to MPD's ability to protect our citizens, but to the public's overwhelming need to be protected from these mobile merchants of violence.The underlying lawsuit against the checkpoints is still ongoing. Judge Leon's ruling means that the MPD may continue to use the "Neighborhood Safety Zone" program while that case is pending. D.C. Wire quotes the head of the police union questioning why Judge Leon didn't address whether evidence discovered during these searches would be upheld in court.
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mobile merchants of violence = brilliant!
is he sure he didn't mean mobile merchants of venice?
'cause i swear i saw a bunch of guys dressed up as the bard threatening people with all kinds of bodily harm in trinidad last week.
The issue I have is that no one ever came out - ex post facto or at the initial announcement - to say exactly what type of crime they were trying to address.
I don't think it's a futile mission for the MPD, but like the WMATA random searches, I want a truly justifiable reason for this to be carried out, rather than vague references to violence and terrorists.
This can all be solved by just looking for really bad evil looking people who are smoking crack while driving a motor vehicle with possibly kids in the trunk. If they spent more of their time focusing on things like that perhaps they can spend more time
at Dunkin Doughnut drinking iced coffees and wonderfully sprinkled powdered doughnuts, but watch out for that white powder. They may mistake it for ANTHRAX and shut down the place for suspicious chemicals.
To get a preliminary injunction, the plaintiff must prove that failure to issue the injunction will (1) result in irreversable harm and (2) the plaintiff has a case that could be decided in its favor. The second part here usually easy, but the first part is more difficult. Denial of the preliminary injunction should not prejudice the final decision in the case, although it is possible that the judge has indicated the likely outcome with the mobile merchants of violence comment.
Furthermore, the issue of evidence admissibility is probably irrelevant and will not be decided in this case anyway.
Indeed. Courts tend to rule as narrowly as possible--they don't go out fishing for additional issues to adjudicate. Until there's a plaintiff who gets brought up on charges using evidence obtained by one of these checkpoints, it seems to me no one has standing on the admissibility issue.
Mobile merchants of violence? I don't want to diss up on my main holmes here, but isn't that waxing a little poetic for a district court ruling? How about ambulatory purveyors of gunshot wounds? Transportational bestowers of bloodshed? People who do drive by's?