During the last week in April the U.S. Supreme Court issued two rulings that dealt blows to democratic rights. One involved a further assault on the Fourth Amendment protection against illegal search and seizure. The other undermined defense against discrimination under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
On April 24 the court ruled that cops can handcuff and arrest people for misdemeanors, such as a failure to wear seat belts, which are normally punished by a citation. The 5-4 court decision responded to an incident in 1997 involving Gail Atwater, a respiratory therapist. Atwater was arrested for driving without a seat belt with her two children in Lago Vista, Texas, during a search for a toy that had dropped off the vehicle onto the street.
"There was no one else on the road and I was going so slowly, I thought it would be O.K. But as soon as I saw the police car I knew I was going to be stopped," said Atwater. When the cop approached, she added, "he stuck his finger in my chest and started yelling about what a terrible mother I was and how I was going to jail."
The cop arrested Atwater for the seat belt violation, handcuffed her, and took her to the police station. Fortunately a friend came by to take care of her crying children, after the cop refused to let her take them to a neighbor's house. Her pickup truck was towed away. Atwater was placed in a jail cell for an hour until she posted a $310 bond. After pleading no contest to the seat belt charges she paid a $50 fine.
Atwater later sued the city of Lago Vista, the police chief, and the cop who arrested her for violating her constitutional rights. The suit was thrown out in the federal district court in Austin, Texas, and reinstated by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. It was later dismissed by a divided vote of the full Fifth Circuit court before being sent to the Supreme Court.
"If someone like me, a soccer mom, can be humiliated and handcuffed in front of her children, what happens to the poor migrant worker or minority when they're stopped?" Atwater asked.
Civil rights legislation weakened
In another decision that "divided along ideological lines," the Wall Street Journal reported that the Supreme Court dismissed a suit by Martha Sandoval, stating that a 1990 Alabama state law making English the official state language violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Under the law written tests for drivers' licenses were available in English only. Sandoval, an immigrant from Mexico who speaks little English, couldn't take the test.
According to the Journal, the ruling asserted that the act does not guarantee protection against "unintended discriminatory effects." All government or private enterprises that receive federal funds are covered by the legislation, which instructs agencies that implement the regulations to also be responsible for enforcing them.
Sandoval's lawyer, Richard Cohen, said that the court ruling could affect other aspects of the civil rights law, including sex discrimination and discrimination against disabled persons in programs that receive federal funding. "Historically, the agencies haven't been vigorous enforcers of this legislation," he said.