By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
The Supreme Court on Monday announced it would not consider a case involving limits on random detention of motorists within 100 miles of a border.
The case involves an Air Force officer, Richard Rynearson, who was detained for 34 minutes at a Border Patrol checkpoint in Uvalde County, Texas, despite authorities having no suspicion that he was an undocumented immigrant or criminal, Reason.com reports.
In a 1976 decision in the United States v. Martinez Fuerte, the Supreme Court concluded random stops at immigration checkpoints did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
The justices reasoned that each stop “involves only a brief detention of travelers” during which “all that is required of the vehicle’s occupants is a response to a brief question or two and possibly the production of a document evidencing a right to be in the United States.”
The court had said “the average length of an investigation in the secondary inspection area is three to five minutes.”
