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Jul 10, 2009 
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Last June we talked about a Washington D.C. police initiative under which cops at at military-style checkpoints would stop drivers entering certain neighborhoods, demand to know their business, and expel them if they could not answer in a satisfactory manner. Via Howard Bashman, who is incidentally made of awesome, I see that the D.C. Circuit ruled today that this practice violates the Fourth Amendment.
Well, duh.
It cannot be gainsaid that citizens have a right to drive upon the public streets of the District of Columbia or any other city absent a constitutionally sound reason for limiting their access.
As near as I can figure out by reading the opinion, the District argued that because the cops weren’t looking for particular criminal behavior, they didn’t need particularized reasonable suspicion to stop cars. That sort of argument takes talent.
(Edit: As Eugene Volokh points out, since the context was an appeal of a preliminary injunction, the Court actually found that the practice was probably a violation, not that it actually was.)
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Cops
