supreme court weakens search protections
chimpy's supreme court appointees waste no time in weakening our constitutional protections against unreasonable search...
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WASHINGTON, June 15— The Supreme Court today affirmed the power of police officers backed by a search warrant to enter a home without knocking, and in so doing signaled the more conservative tilt of the tribunal in recent months.
The 5-to-4 ruling in an otherwise mundane drug case from Detroit was sure to please law enforcement officials and prosecutors. The result had been eagerly awaited to see how President Bush's court selections, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., would vote. They were in the majority today.
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On a summer afternoon in 1998, Booker T. Hudson was sitting in his living room when several Detroit police officers arrived with a warrant. They announced their presence and waited "three to five seconds," according to court records, then entered through the unlocked door without knocking.
The police found guns and cocaine, and Mr. Hudson was eventually found guilty of drug possession and sentenced to 18 months' probation. His lawyers argued unsuccessfully in a state appellate court that the evidence should be excluded, because when the officers barged in without knocking they violated the defendant's Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Indeed, it was not disputed that the Detroit officers had violated the Supreme Court's modern interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, which generally holds that officers with a warrant should knock first. The question for the justices was whether the violation was serious enough to throw out Mr. Hudson's conviction.
In concluding that it was not, Justice Scalia noted the difference between a situation in which evidence is seized without a warrant and a situation like Mr. Hudson's when the police came with a warrant. He wrote, too, that other remedies, like civil suits and disciplinary actions within police departments, are in place to counter lapses like those committed by the Detroit officers.
"When the knock-and-announce rule does apply, it is not easy to determine precisely what officers must do," Justice Scalia wrote. "How many seconds' wait are too few?" The court's "reasonable wait time" standard is "necessarily vague," he wrote.
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WASHINGTON, June 15— The Supreme Court today affirmed the power of police officers backed by a search warrant to enter a home without knocking, and in so doing signaled the more conservative tilt of the tribunal in recent months.
The 5-to-4 ruling in an otherwise mundane drug case from Detroit was sure to please law enforcement officials and prosecutors. The result had been eagerly awaited to see how President Bush's court selections, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., would vote. They were in the majority today.
...
On a summer afternoon in 1998, Booker T. Hudson was sitting in his living room when several Detroit police officers arrived with a warrant. They announced their presence and waited "three to five seconds," according to court records, then entered through the unlocked door without knocking.
The police found guns and cocaine, and Mr. Hudson was eventually found guilty of drug possession and sentenced to 18 months' probation. His lawyers argued unsuccessfully in a state appellate court that the evidence should be excluded, because when the officers barged in without knocking they violated the defendant's Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Indeed, it was not disputed that the Detroit officers had violated the Supreme Court's modern interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, which generally holds that officers with a warrant should knock first. The question for the justices was whether the violation was serious enough to throw out Mr. Hudson's conviction.
In concluding that it was not, Justice Scalia noted the difference between a situation in which evidence is seized without a warrant and a situation like Mr. Hudson's when the police came with a warrant. He wrote, too, that other remedies, like civil suits and disciplinary actions within police departments, are in place to counter lapses like those committed by the Detroit officers.
"When the knock-and-announce rule does apply, it is not easy to determine precisely what officers must do," Justice Scalia wrote. "How many seconds' wait are too few?" The court's "reasonable wait time" standard is "necessarily vague," he wrote.
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posted by scalene at 12:57 PM
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