Supreme Court Embraces Mother May I Rule

Conservative lawmakers were outraged Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4  that police are basically handcuffed when it comes to searching vehicles. The majority opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens (who was never a member of the 60’s group Paul Revere and the Raiders) stated that for the past several decades police had been relying on the “Simon Says” rule but must now fall back to the more restrictive “Mother May I” rule. In his opinion Stevens cited People v Simon (1962) wherein officers of the Alabama Highway Patrol said they had pulled over Lucius Simon, a black driver, after they had seen an elephant in the back seat of his car make an obscene gesture. While questioning the driver with their batons they noted that the elephant had disappeared and surmised that it must be hiding in the vehicle trunk. They testified that after beating Simon “until we couldn’t lift our damn arms no more” he gave them permission to search his vehicle and that search turned up several Playboy magazines in the trunk. Alabama law at that time made it a felony for African American males to possess “images of white purity in any state of undress whatsoever in proximity to their lustful desires.” Simon had subsequently been sentenced to 160 years and had died in prison in 1987. Years of legal wrangling had resulted in diverse interpretations of what became known as the “Simon Says” rule, eventually giving rise to a climate in which police officers would routinely search vehicle interiors once the driver was in custody. Monday’s ruling, wrote Stevens, relied primarily on the 2003 case of People v Tyler wherein South Carolina State Troopers had stopped Germaine Tyler, a black man, for driving an expensive looking Mercedes Benz. The police report had stated that “persons of that race don’t drive no cars of which white folks can’t afford lessen they stole it.” The report went on to say that while questioning the driver with their batons Tyler had spontaneously stated that “no motherf****ing cracker is searching my motherf****ing car.” The state troopers searched the vehicle anyway and found a mummified elephant in the trunk that may have been the same animal missing since the 1962 People v Simon case. Tyler was arrested for “using vile language within 500 miles of a church”, and had subsequently died in prison. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas, David Souter and Antonin Scalia joined with Stevens in his opinion saying that he won’t be around much longer anyway, while Justices Alito, Kennedy, Brier and Chief Justice John Roberts dissented pointing out that Justice John Paul Stevens “is as crazy as a shithouse rat”.