When Hot Pursuit Takes a Deadly Turn

	• Why Can't Felons Vote? Once they've served their time, punishing them further by taking away a basic right isn't just unfair to them; it's bad for us • Sue Up or Shut Up! A curious case may mean that debt collectors can't threaten to sue their targets unless they really mean it • Missing the Target The disabled have lots of buying power and rely heavily on computers and the Internet. So why does it take a court case to get Target to make its website accessible to the blind? • Why to Fear a Jury of Your Peers Most people think that juries are more likely than judges to let defendants off the hook. The conventional wisdom, however, may be dead wrong • Why the Wiretapping Ruling Is Vulnerable Even opponents of President Bush's surveillance program have to be dismayed by Judge Taylor's thin legal reasoning • When God is in the Lyrics All the little girl wanted to do was sing "Awesome God" at an after-school talent show. Instead she became the focus of a federal lawsuit - with a strange coalition of legal backers • If Daughters Decided Even Supreme Court Justices ruling on major constitutional issues can be swayed by their families. Is that a bad thing? • Does the Plame Lawsuit Have a Chance? Analysis: Many legal experts think it won't survive motions to dismiss based on claims of presidential immunity, but it may not be that simple • Whatever Happened to Drug Testing? The percentage of businesses that force their employees to pee in a cup is dropping - largely because it never made much sense in the first place

It's plenty of fun to watch, but it makes you wonder whether real-world cops could get away with half the behavior of their big-screen counterparts. And as a new case before the U.S. Supreme Court suggests, the answer is surprisingly murky.

Five years ago, Deputy Sheriff Timothy Scott of Coweta County, Ga., a rural area 40 miles southwest of Atlanta, had his own Bullitt moment. On a Thursday night at 11 p.m., as a second deputy watched from the side of the road, a car whizzed by doing 73 in a 55 mph zone. The deputy gave chase, his blue lights flashing, but the car accelerated quickly. It ran red lights, crossed double-yellow lines to pass other cars, and hit speeds exceeding 90 mph. Curiously, before every turn, the driver put on his blinker.

It soon became clear that this guy was not going to stop, so the deputy radioed for help, and Scott joined the chase. As the fleeing driver swerved into a shopping mall parking lot, Scott headed for the opposite side and tried to block the exit. The driver squeezed by, bumping Scott's car, which the deputy sheriff did not appreciate. He took the lead in the chase, and called his supervisor at headquarters for "permission to PIT" the driver.

A PIT — Precision Intervention Technique — is essentially what Bullitt was trying to pull off when he hit the black Charger in the left-rear door. If you bump another car in just the right spot, the car will spin and come safely to a stop. That's the theory, anyhow, and Scott's supervisor gave the go ahead to "take him out."

Like Bullitt, though, Scott encountered a few problems. The fleeing car was going way too fast for an accurate PIT, so Scott chose another strategy. Nine miles and six minutes into the chase, he rammed the car from behind, sending it off the road and down an embankment. There was no gas station at the bottom, but the crash was bad enough: It rendered the driver, 19-year-old Vincent Harris, a quadriplegic.