Sunday Morning Hot Tea - No. 27

Changing My Perspective on Movies from My Youth, and What Gives Police the Right to Tow Your Car?

Welcome to Sunday Morning Hot Tea where I write about a little something up top then answer a legal question for you down below. This week, changing perspectives on movies from my youth, and what gives police the right to tow your car? 

In this edition:

• Topic of the Week – I yell about a 1990s romantic comedy movie for several paragraphs

• Legal Question – Tow the Line

Screaming at the Screen

“That’s Lynn,” my mom said, pointing to a woman we had only ever met online. I was twelve and accompanying my mom on an in-person meeting of her fellow members of the Mature Fan Club for the Backstreet Boys, an adults-only online fan group for the band. Yes, I know that’s a lot to unpack in one sentence.

Yes, there was an all-adult Backstreet Boys fan club based on a message board. Yes, saying “all adult” makes it sound sexual. However, you should know that it was indeed not sexual. In fact, those certain smutty fan-fiction writers who churned out erotic tales about the band were outsted. Yes, now as a grownup, I see that the sex stories were a feature not a bug of an all-adult club for a boyband full of overly sexualized grown men. But I was only twelve, and so I had no voting rights in the entity.

Lynn, my mom’s fellow member, did have voting rights. In fact, she ran the club with a handful of other women from across the U.S. and Canada. Lynn was in Texas and was the height of sophistication and fanciness as far as I knew. She drove a Lexus. She was a Lawyer. These terms were mostly meaningless to me, a child, whose prized possession was a throw pillow printed with the face of Howie D. from said Backstreet Boys.

But those two L-words – Lawyer. Lexus. – my mom said with such importance. It was the same reverence or fanciness she used to describe a celebrity or a fancy brand of toilet paper. “I noticed they used Charmin,” she may say after leaving someone else’s house. Not an indictment, but a point of praise, of awe and wonder.

A lawyer, eh? A Lexus, you say? Other than my brush with this totes profesh woman, I had no context for what a cosmopolitan woman-about-town should look like. I was only just meeting in real life the type of non-family role models who I may have possibly tried to be. Before that, my biggest frame of reference was TV shows and rom coms and all the tropes of women depicted therein.

One of my favorite rom coms was Mrs.Winterbourne, a film starring Ricki Lake as a down-on-her-luck ragamuffin preggo who scams her way into a multi-million-dollar family and steals the heart of prime-1990s-era Brendan Fraser. *tiger growl noise* She’s the protagonist, by the way, the one running the con. Them’s the 90s!

Morals aside, the sexual tension in that film was groundbreaking for my barely pubescent blooming sexuality. I wore out that VHS tape. To clarify, I wasn’t rubbing myself up against the furniture or anything. I was just staring at the screen, breathing heavily, and wishing a boy (preferably Brendan Fraser) would kiss me.

That movie did a number on me, but the one that really warped my mind at that age was My Best Friend’s Wedding. You ever hold the memory of a movie in your heart but dare not re-watch it for fear of destroying your love for it when you realize it is full-blown trash? That’s what happened to me and My Best Friend’s Wedding.

The scene where they’re dancing to “The Way You Look Tonight” on the boat going under the bridges? My heart fluttered. When Julia Roberts teared up, I teared up! When he sees Julia Roberts in her black lacy bra? I was giddy. When she finally kisses him at the end? Little Heather cheered for Julia Roberts. I regarded Cameron Diaz as an annoyance, someone who was in the way. I also hated the ending.

I cheered for Julia Roberts the whole time, just as the writer and producers likely intended. I mean, they cast Julia Freakin’ Roberts. Everyone loves her. I don’t even care, you guys, she IS America’s sweetheart. The top 3 American exports are (1) vehicles, (2) optical, technical, and medical apparatus, and (3) Julia Roberts movies. I love her. How could you not love her? I know there are people out there who hate her, but I don’t know any of them personally because I make it a point not to associate with human garbage.

I almost just asked whether she has ever even played a villain in a movie because how could she pull it off with her being so beloved? Then I remembered: My Best Friend’s Wedding. Putting her as the lead in this was the ultimate scam on the audience because, wow, objectively, her character SUCKS.

I re-watched the movie with one of my BFFs, Elyse (yes, that Elyse) when she was in town visiting. Upon rewatch, we realized this movie was an actual horror film. Julia Roberts is a monster. Michael/Dermot Mulroney (NOT Dylan McDermott) was an actual shit bag. He didn’t invite his “best friend” to the wedding until mere DAYS before the ceremony? That’s not an invite. It’s not even a courtesy call. That’s a dick swing and not shocking coming from this charmer.

Also their little pact? Not married by age 28? Baby, I hope you ain’t married by 28. When I was 28, I was dumb as hell! Maybe instead they should make a marriage pact if they’re not married by the time they’re 38 then they can enter into a sham union. At least by then they probably need insurance and maybe if their careers are going well, they’d need the married-filing-jointly tax breaks.

Kimmy/Cameron Diaz honestly should have left both their dysfunctional asses so they could get together then inevitably get divorced only a few short years later.  Then you know Michael would be calling Kimmy up, all drunk and sad, like, “I made the biggest mistake of my life!”

You sure did! Meanwhile, Kimmy is booed up with someone else who is not sneaking a peek at someone else’s lacy black bra or SNIFFING ANOTHER WOMAN’S HAIR WHILE ENGAGED TO HER or getting their feathers ruffled when that other woman brings a man around and forces said man to hide his sexual orientation.

Let’s also be real and just say George/Rupert Everett is the only character you don’t want to yeet directly into the sun. He gets manipulated by Julia Roberts into deceiving some rando strangers and trying to ruin their PLANNED AND PAID FOR wedding.

I also have to say as a person currently planning and paying for my own wedding with my fiancé: shit is EXPENSIVE. I know Kimmy’s rich daddy, played by the incomparable Philip Bosco (RIP), was covering the cost. But if someone tried to thwart my planned and PAID FOR wedding, I would commit a violent felony against them. And my best friends gang (I cannot say “bride tribe” with a straight face) would help me destroy the evidence. Coming between a couple and their non-refundable deposits is some high stakes meddling, Julia Roberts. Do you know how hard it is to choose a linen and chair combination that is at once in-budget, on-theme, and not too matchy-matchy?

No, you wouldn’t know because you inhabit that lovely 90’s rom com trope of the single, hardworking woman, so focused on her climb to the top that she let love pass her by. Morphing from a once young and desirable future-wife material to a nearly 28-year-old chain-smoking spaz in a series of blazers. Don’t let them fool you, 90s rom com career woman trope. There is hope for you. Your journey will begin, just not with ruining my wedding.

It’s all a matter of perspective and a loss of innocence. Little Innocent Heather thought it was adorable and charming and all fun and games to go after the man. Real Life 34-Year-Old Heather planning a wedding? No ma’am. It ain’t all Frank Sinatra songs and Jell-O metaphors. You’re playing with real bucks, and my suspension of disbelief is destroyed. I decided to research just who would write such an abhorrent character like Jules – a woman who was willing to lose all dignity to try and destroy an innocent woman all over some extremely mediocre and frankly pretty stupid guy?

** checks IMDB **

Ah, yes, a man.

At least in Mrs. Winterbourne Ricki Lake taught the up-tight Brendan Fraser to dance and laugh and love again. She saved Shirley MacLaine from an imminent cardiac event. She was scrappy. She beat the system. The fight wasn’t woman against woman. It was underdog versus the established elite of generational wealth.

Ricki charmed a man, not with her looks or sophistication or impressive station in life. She wasn’t a lawyer. She didn’t drive a Lexus. Instead she got the guy using her wit and courage and smart mouth. I guess I learned something from those rom coms after all.

QUESTIONS FROM YOU – Tow Up

This week’s question is from Austin who asked me in-person. Austin asked:

How is towing not a violation of the Fourth Amendment?

Great question, Austin! I am going to quote from some SCOTUS decisions in this answer, but I’m not going to give you footnotes or citations because it’s Sunday morning and it’s early. Just know if you see quotation marks, it’s from the Court.

The Fourth Amendment (probably my favorite Amendment to discuss) protects the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.

See how it doesn’t say we are secure from ALL searches, just “unreasonable” searches. Generally, searches without a warrant are automatically unreasonable unless they fall into one of a few exceptions.

The exception that applies to towing is called the “community caretaking” exception. All these exceptions have been created by the Supreme Court, as it interprets the Fourth Amendment and applies it to specific cases. The community caretaking exception was developed in a 1976 Supreme Court decision called South Dakota v. Opperman.

In that case, the Court explained that police can impound cars to protect “public safety” or “community caretaking functions.” Those functions include towing “disabled or damaged vehicles” and “automobiles which violate parking ordinances, and which thereby jeopardize both the public safety and the efficient movement of vehicular traffic.” The Court called that right of the police to tow cars for public safety “beyond challenge,” so it’s a pretty solid reason why someone’s car can get towed.

The only time that “community caretaking” exception could be violating the Fourth Amendment is if that supposed caretaking was simply a pretext, or an excuse, for police to search a car on suspicion of criminal activity. When deciding that, courts have to analyze whether towing for purposes of “community caretaking” was reasonable, based on the facts and circumstances encountered by the officer at the time of the tow.

Some reasons why police may tow a vehicle is to protect it – for instance, if it is likely to be vandalized or stolen. If that is the police’s reason for towing the car, the court would look at the facts and circumstances: are cars frequently stolen in that area? Is there something damaged on the car, like a door lock or window, that would make it susceptible to being broken into?

Once they have towed the car, cops can perform an “inventory search” of the vehicle. The Court has held that an inventory search can’t be “a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating evidence.” Giving cops free rein to dig through a car could lend itself to that “general rummaging.” To prevent that, the Court demands that there be a “single familiar standard” in place to guide the police and keep them to the task at hand – inventorying the items in a car that has been towed to protect the police and the car owner.

In order not to violate the Fourth Amendment, the police standard must “sufficiently limit discretion of law enforcement officers to prevent inventory searches from becoming evidentiary searches.” This means the policies and procedures need to be clear and strict to keep the police on-task when inventorying items.

To that end, the policies and procedures should have three purposes, according to the Court. These are  “(1) protecting the property of the vehicle’s owner, (2) protecting the police against claims or disputes over lost or stolen property, and (3) protecting the police from danger.” The danger could be explosives or other harmful items inside a car.

The standards are important in the Court’s opinion because they help guide police “who have only limited time and expertise to reflect on and balance the social and individual interests involved in the specific circumstances they confront.” This means the procedures provide a quick and easy-to-follow guidance when police have to jump in and inventory items in a car.

If police find illegal stuff when conducting the inventory, those items can be admissible as evidence agains the driver whose car was towed. Sometimes, police wrongfully pull over a car or wrongfully tow the car. That’s when a car owner can challenge whatever police found when unconstitutionally searching their car.

There are tons of scholarly articles written on and a long list of cases discussing these concepts. But you didn’t ask for all that, you asked how towing isn’t a violation. Here’s the TL;DR version —

Towing doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment if the towing was for public safety. Just because police tow your car does not give them free rein over the contents. But they can inventory the items, and if they see something in plain view, that can be used as evidence against you. They can’t “generally rummage” through your stuff and they have to follow a policy meant to protect your stuff, protect the police from claims of stolen items, and protect the police from danger.

Thanks for asking, Austin!

Got a question? Submit it here. They can be legal what-if questions, questions on current events, or questions about the legality of actions in TV shows or movies you’ve seen. I never ever want to answer your personal legal questions, so don't send those. Love you, but I don’t do that.

Until next week, that’s the tea, and if you’re going to get your car towed, don’t leave contraband where police can see.

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