Fucking shit I meant to say "searches"
sorry


http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/15/scotus.search/index.html

Quote :

"A split Supreme Court ruled Thursday that drug evidence seized in a home search can be used against a suspect even though police failed to knock on the door and wait a "reasonable" amount of time before entering"

Quote :

"Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said disallowing evidence from every "knock-and-announce violation" by officers would lead to the "grave adverse consequence" of a flood of appeals by accused criminals seeking dismissal of their cases."

Quote :

"Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a lengthy dissent, saying, "Our Fourth Amendment traditions place a high value upon protecting privacy in the home." A centerpiece of those protections, he said, includes the "exclusionary rule," under which evidence seized in illegal searches should be suppressed at trial. "

Discuss?

[Edited on June 15, 2006 at 1:09 PM. Reason : title]

6/15/2006 1:09:20 PM

I'd object to them just busting into your house to search. If people just busted into my house unannounced, I might shoot. If they're cops, I'll get mowed down.

Basically this is a way to ensure there'll be way more fuckups in the future.

6/15/2006 1:11:27 PM

IF YOU AINT GOT NUTTIN TO HIDE YOU SHOULDNT WORRY

6/15/2006 1:13:43 PM

Haha.

Yeah maybe so (I know you were being sarcastic), but imagine people you don't know breaking into your house unannouced? I just might try to defend myself, which is justification for even MORE criminal charges or violent reprisal at that point.

6/15/2006 1:16:56 PM

^^^ yup, the dissenting justice made sure he put that point in writing

Quote :

""It weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection," concluded Breyer, who said he fears police will now feel free to routinely violate the knocking and waiting requirements, knowing they might not be punished for it. "

[Edited on June 15, 2006 at 1:23 PM. Reason : ^]

6/15/2006 1:23:13 PM

That is absolutely NOT true at all - this is why newspaper reporters who try to report on the Supreme Court should at least have law degrees. The Supreme Court did NOT hold that police no longer have to knock. All it said is that evidence gained by such a search does NOT have to be suppressed at trial. Those are no the same thing.

[Edited on June 15, 2006 at 1:49 PM. Reason : add]

6/15/2006 1:48:35 PM

How's that?

And how did 4 people with law degrees on the SC agree with these no nothing reporters?

6/15/2006 1:57:18 PM

They did not. Please read the opinion. Nowhere in the opinion was it ever stated that police do not need to knock. In fact, it was stated at the beginning that a violation occurred. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/05pdf/04-1360.pdf.

6/15/2006 2:27:41 PM

Quote :

"It weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection"

6/15/2006 2:31:24 PM

Is that from the majority opinion - which is of course the holding of the Court?

What is the holding of the Court here? It is NOT that police do not have to knock. It is simply that the evidence does not need to be suppressed. This is simple reading comprehension - what don't you get about it?

6/15/2006 2:49:28 PM

Because throwing out evidence is what kept these cops in check.

They want to bust you, why would they blow their evidence? Now that they can charge in like cowboys, what keeps them out?

6/15/2006 2:52:23 PM

Quote :

"Because throwing out evidence is what kept these cops in check. They want to bust you, why would they blow their evidence? Now that they can charge in like cowboys, what keeps them out?"

Please read the opinion, paying particular attention to Section III-B.

(The short answer is Section 1983.)

6/15/2006 2:53:38 PM

Quote :

"The Supreme Court did NOT hold that police no longer have to knock. All it said is that evidence gained by such a search does NOT have to be suppressed at trial. Those are no the same thing."

Look we know they're not the same thing, but they result in the same behavior.

6/15/2006 2:55:10 PM

i thought they were the same

6/15/2006 3:01:04 PM

And this is where Wolfpack2K argues semantics to justify a crappy legal decision.



[Edited on June 15, 2006 at 3:02 PM. Reason : deja vu]

6/15/2006 3:02:15 PM

What one person calls "semantics" lawyers call fine distinctions that can turn the entire outcome of a case.

Quote :

"Look we know they're not the same thing, but they result in the same behavior."

That would be true were it not for Section 1983. Again, read division III-B of the opinion.

6/15/2006 3:07:07 PM

perhaps you could refer us to the specific sentences that you are basing your argument on and what you're extapolating from them (meaning, 'quote them, dipshit').

6/15/2006 7:09:46 PM

Back in high school these sheriff deputies were trying to serve a warrant and came to our house by mistake at about 11pm. They beat on the door like madmen but didn't shout "Police" or anything. So my dad opens the door with his pistol like he always does. I've never seen cops scurry so fast in my life. They retreated to the edge of the house and there was a little standoff until everything was straigtened out.

Point of this humorous story: police do make honest mistakes on a regular basis. If they barge in my house they'll likely be shot. Despite what they may think, announcing their presence is for everyone's safety.

6/15/2006 8:00:00 PM

More than just anounce, I don't think they should risk running into the house. They might get shot or accidentally shoot an innocent. There is no guarantee that just because you yelled "Police" that I #1: heard you, #2 believed you, #3 had time to drop my gun, #4 didn't have my movement mis-interpretted.

Fail anyone of these and everyone would have been fine if only you had waited outside.

6/15/2006 9:12:13 PM

So Justice Souter, who wrote the eminent domain decision which gave the gov't the ability to use the most flimsy of excuses to seize your home, at least wants the sheriff to knock before they take it away from you. That's justice, that is.

Let me get my white-out so I can erase the 4th amendment from my copy of the Constitution. I like to keep it updated.

Scalia: "If the consequences of running afoul of the law were so massive, officers would be inclined to wait longer than the law requires -- producing inevitable violence against officers in some cases, and the destruction of evidence in many others." Translation: Let's not let our Constitutional protections make the heavily armed Swat Team feel all scared or let evidence get flushed.

Scalia: ...disallowing evidence from every "knock-and-announce violation" by officers would lead to the "grave adverse consequence" of a flood of appeals by accused criminals seeking dismissal of their cases. Translation: The police can't get this "Knock and Announce" thing right, so let's just throw it out.

Where's that White-out?

6/15/2006 9:39:39 PM

nah, our rights aren't eroding away

6/15/2006 10:30:55 PM

^^ Well, legalistically speaking, I think the legislature should chime in to disallow forced entry. If you are worried about losing evidence then come during the day when they aren't there.

6/16/2006 12:56:16 AM

searces

6/16/2006 1:30:57 AM

as long as it helps catch more criminals and bust more drug users, i'm all for it.

6/16/2006 1:39:53 AM

I got it. We need to set all the mass murderers free. We caught em all! Cops don't get to have any good clean fun! Instead they have to play pretend policeman, tearing down walls to get at meek little kids with pot plants in their closets. We should let Barabbus loose and then all these young full-of-shit cops, who think the war on drugs is worth fighting, can learn what real policemen are for.

[Edited on June 16, 2006 at 1:51 AM. Reason : .]

6/16/2006 1:50:29 AM

Quote :

"Smath74: as long as it helps catch more criminals and bust more drug users, i'm all for it."

First off, this call to catch the users is stupid. Are you sure you didn't mean providers/dealers/traffickers?

Secondly, aren't you the one who brags about drunk driving on a regular basis? I don't know why I put that in question format because I know it's you who brags about it. You even rationalized it by saying you pay your insurance or some shit. So seriously, shut the fuck up about drugs users--as if you're better than them.

6/16/2006 11:01:29 AM

if someone busts into my house w/o saying police they're getting shot in the face.

6/16/2006 1:08:28 PM

So is there really a place in the constitution where it says that cops performing a search have to knock on the door and annouce their presence?

6/16/2006 2:53:10 PM

[quote]More than just anounce, I don't think they should risk running into the house. They might get shot[quote]

Most people I've heard seem to think the opposite danger is true. The odds that someone just happens to be sitting in their house holding a gun are fairly low. If you knock, you given them that many more seconds to go get their gun that they wouldn't have had if you knocked.

I don't particularly care for this decision, but only because I don't think it does any good. What it does not do, however, is make things more dangerous for cops or anyone else.

6/16/2006 3:21:05 PM

it makes it more dangerous for everyone


I'm shooting at them


and I'm sure they will return fire, at least the undead ones

6/16/2006 3:35:20 PM

Quote :

"extapolating from them"

Yeah, dipshit, tell us where your extapolating from...and then tell me what that means.

6/16/2006 3:42:29 PM

^^You're not going to shoot at them. I refuse to believe that you commonly sit within easy arm's reach of a firearm. I further refuse to believe that in the initial shock of having the police kick down your door you will be lucid enough to arm yourself but not quite lucid enough to recognize a fucking police raid when you see one. I further refuse to believe that, even if I'm wrong in the above two guesses, that there are more people like you than there are the kind who would take the extra warning given by a knock to pick up guns/run away/hide evidence.

[Edited on June 16, 2006 at 3:57 PM. Reason : ]

6/16/2006 3:55:51 PM

^ Most people don't sleep in their living room. The cops must get through both the outter door and your bedroom door. As it can take 20 to 30 seconds to clear the living room before trying the first door the average joe has plenty of time to get to the bedstand.

And if the master bedroom is in the back of the house there is no way he heard someone yell "Police" before hearing a massive crash like someone was beating down his front door. After this point the odds of someone getting shot are pretty good, because if "average joe" doesn't then manage to get rid of his gun between the time that the cops yell "Police" again, this time outside his bedroom where he can hear, and they break down the bedroom door then he might be fucked.

6/16/2006 4:29:11 PM

Quote :

"bgmims: Yeah, dipshit, tell us where your extapolating from...and then tell me what that means."

He left out one letter. And, by the way, extrapolating doesn't actually have to involve math.

Quote :

"ex·trap·o·late 1. To infer or estimate by extending or projecting known information. 2. Mathematics. To estimate (a value of a variable outside a known range) from values within a known range by assuming that the estimated value follows logically from the known values."

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/extrapolate

[Edited on June 16, 2006 at 4:32 PM. Reason : sss]

6/16/2006 4:30:47 PM

shoot all the cops that come into your house without identifying themselves

its not like you'll pay $500,000 in legal fees plus whatever civil suit you are hit with

go ahead, be my guest

6/16/2006 4:33:19 PM

^I think the point is that it would be accidental.

Take a man who's endured three break-ins in the past four years, has a family he's worked hard to provide for and protect...he hears someone forcefully enter his home, he grabs his pistol, and BLAM he's dead because he posed a threat to a bunch of uppity, non-knocking police officers...

6/16/2006 5:13:42 PM

The police still have to knock. What is it that you still fail to get about this?

6/16/2006 5:44:13 PM

Yeah they "still have to knock". If they don't, it's not like they lose their precious evidence, is it?

6/16/2006 5:47:06 PM

Quote :

"^I think the point is that it would be accidental. Take a man who's endured three break-ins in the past four years, has a family he's worked hard to provide for and protect...he hears someone forcefully enter his home, he grabs his pistol, and BLAM he's dead because he posed a threat to a bunch of uppity, non-knocking police officers... "

it doesnt matter how many break-ins he's witnessed in his house in what time period...it matters whether or not his life was in danger as to if he could use deadly force or not

thats what the law says...i'm going off what i learned in my concealed weapons class TODAY from people who know more about those laws than any of us

6/16/2006 6:09:18 PM

Quote :

".i'm going off what i learned in my concealed weapons class TODAY from people who know more about "

remember Waco!!

remember Ruby Ridge!!!1

dey tuk ur jobs!!!!!11

6/16/2006 6:41:09 PM

Quote :

"Yeah they "still have to knock". If they don't, it's not like they lose their precious evidence, is it? "

Losing your evidence is not the only penalty that there is, genius. I swear, how is it possible for you, who apparently does not know how to read (otherwise you would have read the opinon and know what I'm talking about) to even be posting here? That's quite a paradox.

6/16/2006 7:12:19 PM

Quote :

"it doesnt matter how many break-ins he's witnessed in his house in what time period...it matters whether or not his life was in danger as to if he could use deadly force or not thats what the law says...i'm going off what i learned in my concealed weapons class TODAY from people who know more about those laws than any of us"

I understand that. I'm not talking about a dude who actually shoots at cops but instead arms himself just in case he'll need to use a firearm. Doesn't actually use it but has it and consequently poses a threat to the police.

6/16/2006 7:20:07 PM

I saw an episode of Cops the other day. Undercover cops went on a drug bust, but since they didn't want to blow their cover, they wore ski masks. So you had 2 bigass dudes in ski masks and various other plainclothes busting down a door without knocking or anything. Anyone who doesn't think that's a shitty way to do police work is a damned fool.

However, if I remember correctly, they stayed in the house and sold dope out of the window for several hours afterwards, which I got a kick out of.

6/16/2006 7:29:13 PM

Quote :

"Most people don't sleep in their living room. The cops must get through both the outter door and your bedroom door. As it can take 20 to 30 seconds to clear the living room before trying the first door the average joe has plenty of time to get to the bedstand."

Which is why I have a sneaking suspicion that, especially in those circumstances, the police will continue to knock. Evidence isn't the only issue here. They don't want to get shot any more than the rest of us do.

There is a difference between "being ordered not to knock" and "not having to knock," and there's a difference between that and what the Supreme Court decided today.

6/16/2006 7:34:00 PM

From the Supreme Court Decision:

Quote :

"Another development over the past half-century that deters civil-rights violations is the increasing professionalism of police forces, including a new emphasis on internal police discipline."

The police are doing such a bang-up job now-a-days, that we should just go ahead and trust them. What a poor basis to strip away our constitutional protections.

From the Dissent:

Quote :

"As a result, the Court destroys the strongest legal incentive to comply with the Constitution's knock-and-announce requirement. And the Court does so without significant support in precedent."

Scalia et al depart from their "originalist" approach to suggest that if the police violate the "knock and Announce" law, you can just sue them later for it. This might be a little hard as you rot in jail, convicted on the evidence they found after violating your rights.

Quote :

"The majority first argues that "the constitutional violation of an illegal manner of entry was not a but-for cause of obtaining the evidence." But taking causation as it is commonly understood in the law, I do not see how that can be so. Although the police might have entered Hudson's home lawfully, they did not in fact do so. Their unlawful behavior inseparably characterizes their actual entry; that entry was a necessary condition of their presence in Hudson's home; and their presence in Hudson's home was a necessary condition of their finding and seizing the evidence. At the same time, their discovery of evidence in Hudson's home was a readily foreseeable consequence of their entry and their unlawful presence within the home. Moreover, separating the "manner of entry" from the related search slices the violation too finely. As noted, we have described a failure to comply with the knock-and-announce rule, not as an independently unlawful event, but as a factor that renders the search "constitutionally defective." "

The "Knock and Announce" rule, recognized as law for centuries, is the least way the gov't can acknowledge our right to privacy. It gives us some measure of thinking our home as our sanctuary. Without any negative consequence from violating this rule, and even with a warrant, our feeling that our home is our castle is utterly destroyed. This can only create even more of a feeling of contempt for our government.

6/16/2006 11:09:21 PM

Quote :

"Losing your evidence is not the only penalty that there is, genius. I swear, how is it possible for you, who apparently does not know how to read (otherwise you would have read the opinon and know what I'm talking about) to even be posting here? That's quite a paradox."

Before, violating the rule meant for sure that the evidence couldn't be used. In my opinion this is the best deterrent to derelict behavior like this. Of course there are other "penalties" for police misbehavior. Then again, police officers get paid leave after they maliciously shoot civilians without just cause. Hmm...

I know exactly what you're talking about, I just don't agree with you. For you to insult my intelligence is laughable you fucking Pharisee.

6/16/2006 11:15:52 PM

Anecdotal evidence...

I saw a cop get busted by a defense lawyer for perjuring himself in order to convict a man who was accused of attempting to steal a steak. The judge dismissed the charges against the defendant and admonished the police officer...oooo, an admonishment, that's hardcore, man.

6/16/2006 11:23:07 PM

As long as we're talking about the motivations of police officers, I don't think they're paid enough for us to expect anything more than what we get from them today.

There are plenty of ways superiors can punish officers, counseling and demotions, for example.

But there's also firing. There are some situations where a firing can actually hurt a police officer--they may be tarnished enough that it's hard to find employment again, or they may have genuinely found satisfaction in upholding the law and removing a man's satisfaction is a big deal. However, for the most part (IMO), it's just, "Oh, so you're taking my crappy salary and paying me in the meantime while I find another job. I'm so hurt. "

[Edited on June 16, 2006 at 11:45 PM. Reason : sss]

6/16/2006 11:40:20 PM