Moments after Luigi Mangione was handcuffed at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, a police officer searching his backpack found a loaded gun magazine wrapped in a pair of underwear.
The discovery, recounted in court Monday as Mangione fights to keep evidence out of his New York murder case, convinced police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, that he was the man wanted in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan five days earlier.
That’s the bullshit issue with probable cause. A “hunch” is proof enough and can range from good instincts to racism.
Not always. Well, maybe it depends on the jurisdiction. But, for example, stopping and searching cars has a lot more leeway than searching a house. Maybe searching people in public is the same? I remember New York has/had that stop and frisk law.
Of course I am not arguing against you, as I agree that it’s all bullshit and unconstitutional. This case especially. People have gotten off for much less technicalities, and yet Mangione is still on trial. He will never see a fair trial.
Different levels of search. A “weapons pat down” does not constitute a search requiring a warrant or probable cause. Even then a weapons pat down can only be initiated on a detained or arrested person. The former simply requires “reasonable and articulable suspicion” that crime is afoot. That’s a lower bar than probable cause but should be more than just a hunch.
And a tip is more than a hunch. I’m sure there was some illegal conduct during the arrest, but I don’t think this is it.
A tip is absolutely not “more than a hunch”. I can’t recall all the finer details about what elevates a tip from essentially “random gossip” to RAS or even PC, but it’s not as simple as cops receive a tip means they can search you.
Ah yes a hearsay hunch. Nobody positively ID’d anyone before submitting a tip. It’s still a hunch.
Well, if it was anybody other than st Luigi, we probably wouldn’t care as much about the technicalities. And there really are too many police officers to only hire ones that can handle all the technicalities. So the system gives them wiggle room, which is reasonable. There are lots of places where that wiggle room is clearly excessive. I am not sure if this really is one though. Hard to say for sure.