Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
It is sometimes hard to believe but he is an attorney.
What the hell...everyone else around here claims to be sane....why not Jarod an atty?
It is sometimes hard to believe but he is an attorney.
Personally I think allowing the government to board any vessel at will gives the Government WAY too much power and authority. I think it violates the 4th Amendment. I believe in a limited government, especially when my personal property is involved.
the 4th would have more power if you applied it equally to all persons, not just especially your own.
I think the case is Crooks v. State. Crossing the line is not enough, one must affect traffic. Their is no yellow line in the water.
No Jarod, you are absolutely incorrect. I am a professional mariner. People like you cause no end of trouble for people like me. Your flippant attitude towards the indication that an inebriated operator was at the wheel is disturbing at minimum,
Driving a boat while intoxicated is a huge and growing safety concern. Your loss of control of your vessel was ample cause for a stop. Checking for safety equipment is just good seamanship, seeing how he was on your vessel anyhow.
So this weekend I was out on a boat I share with my sister. I had my three kids and wife with me, but I was being Capitan.
As we were heading out the inlet, I was teaching my son to drive. The boat was sluggish because it was full of fuel and sitting very heavy in the water. My son lurched the boat toward a dock and I grabbed the wheel and corrected the direction. A Sherriff boat was heading toward us while this maneuver occurred. At no time was anyone in any danger and we did not come close to the dock in question.
The Sheriff boat came close to me and told me to kill the engine, he was boarding. I obeyed and he died his vessel up to mine and preceded to ask a series of questions, requesting to see the registration, hear the horn, see the life vests, and fire extinguisher. We had all the required safety equipment. He then took the time to call in the registration. In all the stop took 15 min's.
What are your thoughts, was this stop a violation of the 4th Amendment? Was his inspection of by boat an unreasonable search? The Florida Supreme Court says no. While, on a purely selfish personal level, I am glad the local police are doing this, because there is a lot of unsafe boating in my area, I believe stopping boats without Reasonable suspicion of a criminal violation is a violation of my Constitutional rights.
What are your thoughts?
Personally I think allowing the government to board any vessel at will gives the Government WAY too much power and authority. I think it violates the 4th Amendment. I believe in a limited government, especially when my personal property is involved.
1. I don't really care what you believe.
2. What I experienced was a random stop. They don't do "checkpoints" regarding boats in Florida because its not a legal requirement, they are free to do "safety inspections" at will so why would they set up a "checkpoint"?
3. We were fishing and stopped for quite a while, but I don't care what you believe.
4. So you know nothing about maritime law, yet you go off half cocked about me saying the stop was random.
He stopped me and searched my vessel without reasonable suspicion that I was committing a crime. I was literally legally compelled to comply with his request to submit my boat to a government inspection.
Impaired operation? The fact that we headed toward a dock for a few seconds, then corrected. To you, is that enough to make a stop and search "reasonable"?
He did not ask about alcohol, it was like 9:30 in the morning. So to you, a single erratic movement that put nobody at any risk is a reasonable cause for the government to be allowed to search your boat? I disagree, but that was the opinion I was looking for. Thank you for sharing.
In case you missed it, I said previously:
I was only going by what you said that it was Constitutional. The stop in question in this case was determined to be random, which is again irrelevant to what I was saying about a checkpoint or safety inspection. The court approves of this:
It sounds like the court gives more leeway to boat checkpoints than vehicles.... so random stops sound OK in Florida.
In this case, the captain should have been arrested for not having the registration needed, and an inventory search done afterwards. An inventory search is just about always good, and that's the way veteran law enforcement would have gone about it.
And obviously, anything in plain view would automatically be admissible.
I'm curious how one would NOT randomly pick boats out for safety inspections; search every boat in the harbor??? What do you think Jarod??
At airports they randomly select individuals for additional search; is that unconstitutional Jarod?
If they had "randomly" selected a boat piloted by a black man, would it be racist too?
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I routinely get inspected for safety reasons every year. I have two bass boats and when I use them at a public ramp I can expect to be inspected. Sometimes they'll put a safety sticker on the boat (that covers me for a summer) and sometimes they don't. I don't care. I can also tell that the patrol is looking for alcohol as well. I have no problem with the checks as I don't want to be on the water with a bunch of unsafe boaters or boaters who are intoxicated and thus unsafe. I think the guy who checked Jarod out was doing a good job from what Jarod describes.
Big government republicans!
Yes but the copper pig ain't supposed to be bothering people like Jarod. Didn't the pig know who Jarod was? I mean come on. This kind of financial profiling of 1%er richerals has been going on since the founding of this country and had to stop
FREE MUMIA!!!!!!!
This is the false "gotcha" moment that leftists like to throw out.
When conservatives want government to do, what they're SUPPOSED to be doing, and do it well.... the leftists snidely throw out comments like "big government republicans."
The government is supposed to provide domestic and international security. That is government's most legitimate function. If conservatives want the government to maintain a strong and well-equipped military, that is not counter-intuitive to conservatism. Conservatives want government to do, what they're SUPPOSED to be doing, and do it well.
It's really not a difficult concept to grasp, and one would have be deliberately obtuse not to comprehend it. Which is why I am convinced this army of alleged on-line libertarians is nothing more than a regiment dispatched by the far left to flank conservatives from the right.