In the ruling, the Court did not completely prohibit warrantless searches of vehicles.  It did, however, give law enforcement a clearer test to determine whether a particular search will be proper.  After the ruling  an officer may search a vehicle without a warrant “when an arrestee is within reaching distance of the vehicle or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest.”  The test the Court established now prevents the police from searching a vehicle after the defendant has been safely taken into custody and there is no risk of danger to the officer, but does allow a search for evidence of the particular crime the defendant is being arrested for.  As such, the days of a routine traffic stop leading to a full-scale search of a vehicle when no other criminal activity is found may now be over.

The case came to my attention when I was an intern in the Georgia Governor’s office as the Executive Counsel’s intern.  I worked for Georgia Supreme Court Justice Harold Melton who at the time was the Executive Counsel to the Governor.  At the time, the case was just beginning to get publicity because video of the incident between Wilson, his friends and the underage girl had leaked to the media. The case was beginning to snowball and I had to give a report to the Executive Counsel explaining how Wilson’s case differed from Dixon’s. Wilson, like Dixon, was charged with aggravated child molestation and faced a mandatory sentence.  What made the Wilson case legally interesting was that although the Supreme Court ruled in Dixon’s case that the legislature’s intent was not to subject those convicted of consensual sex with a younger person to felony molestation charges, the precedent did not extend to cases where the conduct involved non-procreative sex.

Both cases drew national attention because of the perceived injustice facing two young males who had done nothing more than have sex with arguably consenting young women.  There was a lot of talk about their promising futures lost to the harsh realities of being a convicted felon sex offender. However what seems to be missing is the discourse on why society allows young male athletes a pass when they take part in denigrating young women.  In Wilson’s case particularly his behavior was deplorable.  He not only took part in encouraging a young girl to perform a sexual act on him and his friends, they also videotaped the episode.  Despite this, many people rushed to his defense and demanded his release.  Maybe the punishment was harsh, but what about the damage he did to the young girl he took advantage of?  What about her future?

"all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really.”

Watson went on to say that: "His hope is that everyone is equal, but he counters that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”. He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because “there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level”. He writes that “there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically."

This is not the first time that Watson has made insensitive remarks. In the past, he has been raised the ire of women’s groups for his comments about female scientists. It seems that Watson would counter that many of his comments have a basis in science in scientific research. One has to wonder if these statements were made in an effort to help sell his new book. If it isn’t, this may just be an example of how seemingly intelligent people can be shockingly ignorant.

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