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You've heard of racial profiling?
 Is the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office engaging in the practice of Schiavo profiling and just plain police harassment?
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized"----Fourth Amendment.
That includes the right to move freely upon the highways in abeyance of traffic laws without being hassled and intimidated by officers of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
The most widely held common definition of probable cause would be "a reasonable belief that a crime has been committed" and that the person is linked to the crime with the same degree of certainty.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that "as a general matter, the decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred".
They just can't decide to stop a person for the whim of it or in hopes that they may find some violation.
Unless the police are conducting a traffic checkpoint, they must have probable cause to believe that an offense has occurred in order to stop a motorist and detain them, actually engaging in what amounts to a custodial interrogation without presence of counsel.
But that's exactly what happened this week to a person well-known to Pinellas County residents and Terri Schiavo supporters nationwide, stopped without probable cause by an officer of the Pinellas County Sheriff's office who actually, without cause, called for backup.
Could the stop have been for retribution and retaliatory purposes, for the person's advocacy in the Schiavo case, for her complaints before various county and state agencies concerning the alleged abuse and wrongdoing in the Schiavo case, including the unethical, unlawful and unconstitutional acts of Pinellas County Court Judge George Greer, a former Pinellas County commissioner?
The female motorist was returning home from work at about 5 p.m. last Friday, in compliance with the vehicle and traffic laws. "I hadn't been drinking nor would I drink and drive. I was on my way home from work. That's all. No speeding, no swerving, no careless driving and absolutely no discernable reason for pulling me over in the first place".
She said that she had her seat belt on, hadn't changed lanes, had used her turn signal and there was absolutely no probable cause for the stop.
Two backup cars were called and responded. The officers launched into an interrogation:
Do you get high?
Ever been arrested?
Are you high now?
Have you ever driven drunk?
Have you ever been charged of a felony?
How often do you drink?
Do you know people who get high?
Do you have drugs or a weapon in your car?
In the eyes of the U.S. Supreme Court, not only was the traffic stop unconstitutional but so was the interrogation. Did the officers have it mind to plant some drugs in order to achieve a false arrest, malicious prosecution and negative publicity for supporters of Terri Schiavo and the Schindler family?
When she asked why she was stopped, the officer handed her back her license and said, "Routine".
Routine? As in routine harassment? Routine abuse of power and position? Routine retaliation? Routine unconstitutional traffic stops?
 Has Pinellas County turned into a Police State or are they just engaged in harassment of Terri Schiavo supporters now that Michael Schiavo is employed with the department, hired by former Pinellas County Everett Rice after Rice adamantly refused to open a criminal investigation into Michael Schiavo's alleged abuse, neglect and exploitation of his disabled wife.
Of course Eleanor Centonze, mother of Schiavo's long-time concubine Jodi Centonze, was employed by Rice at the sheriff's office for 20 years prior to her retirement in 1999, a year after Schiavo had filed his petition before Pinellas County Court judge George Greer to withdraw his wife's feeding tube to cause her death.
Instead of using taxpayer resources to unlawfully stop motorists in Pinellas County, unbelievably calling for backup, the sheriff's office should have impartially investigated the alleged wrongdoing in the Schiavo case.
 This is the same department that, under Sheriff Rice, refused to deliver the order signed by Governor Jeb Bush under Terri's Law to the Woodside Hospice in October 2003 to reinsert Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Rice and the Pinellas County Sheriff's office refused to honor an executive order but yet they are engaging in an unconstitutional traffic stop of a person who worked long and hard to save the disabled woman's life and continues to work on behalf of the disabled and elderly.
There's something wrong with this picture, something wrong with this use of tax dollars.
No matter how you look at it, the traffic stop of the advocate was illegal. It has been well settled by the Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio that a traffic stop is a temporary detention of a driver of a vehicle by police to investigate a possible crime, therefore, there must be probable cause to stop the vehicle to begin with, not just a "routine" harassment stop. In Terry (how appropo) the standard for temporary detention requires reasonable suspicion that a crime has occurred or is about to occur. The only crime that was about to occur in this case was by the police officers. The detention of the prominent Terri Schiavo supporter was illegal.
In this particular case, it appears that the sheriff's officers were hoping to hassle the driver further with a search of the vehicle but were disappointed when there was no reason to do so. Although the stop was without probable cause, they have planned on trying to implement a search of the vehicle, utilizing either of two probable cause rules. Under the plain sight rule, anything that the officer can plainly see in the car's interior from standing outside of the vehicle is fair game. The second is the furtive gesture rule which means that if the driver engages in any movement that the officer considers "furtive" is cause to search the vehicle on the premise that the driver's movement was an attempt to destroy or remove evidence.
A pretext stop is a traffic stop when the officer detains the driver for a minor traffic offense because he suspects that the driver may be involved in something more such as driving while intoxicated, transporting drugs or stolen property. In many instances, the officer decides who they're going to stop based on age, race and appearance----or social and political activity. These stops are also unconstitutional.
If the driver has not violated any traffic rules, as the officers essentially admitted in the case of the Schiavo supporter, the officer has no legal basis to stop, detain and question the driver as occurred in Clearwater, Fla. last week.
In 1996, in Whren v. U.S., 116 S. Ct. 1769, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that any traffic offense committed by a driver was a legitimate legal basis for a stop. In other words, any time a police officer sees a traffic offense, the officer may stop the driver, even if the officer has absolutely no interest in traffic enforcement and in fact is interested in the driver for other reasons which themselves would not be legally adequate for a stop.
That standard and basis didn't exist in the traffic stop in question by the officer's own admission. The traffic stop was illegal and unconstitutional, a blatant violation of the driver's Fourth Amendment rights as the plain view search of the interior of her car constituted an illegal search without probable cause.
   
In the Dukes of Hazzard, Boss Hogg was the unethical and excessively greedy commissioner of Hazzard County, engaging in numerous real estate schemes and other criminal acts. His lust for power and money fueled him to commit nefarious acts and crimes by engaging associates such as Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane and deputies Enos and Cletus.
Boss Hogg was constantly looking for new ways, usually illegal, to bring revenue to the county and ultimately to himself, using Coltrane and the Hazzard County courts to engage in such practices as putting fake fire hydrants next to parked cars or using hair dryers as radar guns to ticket motorists for speeding.
The Boss Hoggs of Pinellas County use probate courts to rape and pillage guardianships to fill their pockets.
The antics of Boss Hogg and Roscoe B. Coltrane in the Dukes of Hazzard were comical and entertaining.
The tactics of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department aren't. 9-2-06
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© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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