Posted on 08/14/2016 10:11:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
If there is anything on which Americans across the political spectrum agree, it is the inviolability of the Constitution. It is our national scripture, invoked by all and rejected by none.
Conservatives attending the first tea party rallies in 2009 often waved copies of the document. The most memorable moment of the recent Democratic National Convention was when the father of a Muslim U.S. Army captain killed in Iraq demanded of Donald Trump, "Have you even read the United States Constitution?"
But one portion of our national charter has eroded to the point of invisibility: the Fourth Amendment. It says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." In much of America, that guarantee is an empty promise.
The latest evidence came in a report on police practices in Baltimore, issued on Aug. 10 by the U.S. Department of Justice after an investigation spurred by the 2015 death of Freddie Gray. It documents that the city's law enforcement officers operate with virtually no regard for the Fourth Amendment.
In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled that cops may stop someone when they have reasonable grounds to suspect criminal activity and, if they have reasonable grounds to think the person is armed, may frisk him lightly to detect weapons. They may not stop anyone they please, and they may not vigorously search a citizen's clothing and body without a good reason.
The court intended to empower police only within strict limits. It emphasized, "No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law."
But the Justice Department found that in Baltimore, police routinely stop people on the street without reasonable suspicion, conduct physical searches that lack adequate grounds and exceed legal limits, and arrest people without justification. Each of these practices is more than a mistake: It is a violation of fundamental liberties at the heart of what it means to be an American.
The usual assumption is that cops can be trusted to know who's a bad guy and who's not. But of the more than 300,000 pedestrian stops that occurred over a 5 1/2-year span, the report notes, only 3.7 percent led to an arrest or citation -- and many of those were later dropped.
Thousands of innocent citizens were inconvenienced, humiliated and deprived of their freedom. Some were repeatedly victimized; one middle-aged African-American man was stopped 30 times and never charged. Police often arrest citizens for merely standing on a public street near city property -- which is not illegal.
They expose some victims to grievous indignities. After one adolescent filed a complaint alleging that a cop pulled down his pants on the street, he told investigators, the same cop later "pushed the teenager against a wall, pulled down his pants and grabbed his genitals."
The Justice Department confirmed that one driver had to remove her shirt in public -- and "the officer then pulled down the woman's underwear and searched her anal cavity." She was not charged.
All this would be bad enough if it were unique to Maryland. But similar abuses have been documented in city after city. In 2013, a federal judge found that unconstitutional police stops were "a fact of daily life in some New York City neighborhoods" and that the department exhibited "deliberate indifference" to these violations.
A 2011 Justice Department investigation found cops in New Orleans "engage in a pattern of stops, searches, and arrests that violate the Fourth Amendment." In 2014, it found Cleveland police guilty of regularly "using unreasonable force in violation of the Fourth Amendment." Last year, the same type of conduct was documented in Ferguson, Missouri.
These systematic abuses go on partly because their biggest effect is on blacks and Hispanics, whose treatment often gets little attention. Another reason they persist is that there is no simple remedy when cops trample on the Fourth Amendment rights of innocent people. Evidence gathered through illegal searches can be thrown out in court - but that helps only victims who are prosecuted, which most are not.
The Fourth Amendment is just one of the provisions the framers devised to keep Americans free. But they seem to have written it in disappearing ink.
-—It is our national scripture, invoked by all and rejected by none.-—
Except for a select few like Hillary Clinton, and Jamie Gorelick, and Huma Abedin, and Lois Lerner, and Barack Obama...
And they are the ones who need to be searched thoroughly
It is our national scripture, invoked by all and rejected by none
It used to be said that progressives could not count from 1 to 10 without skipping 2. Now I guess 4 is gne as well.
Bump?!
The problem is people mistakenly believe that if they are cooperative with the cop, and that since they have nothing to hide, that maybe the cop will just forget about that speeding infraction you were pulled over for. So with the threat of a big fine, and the implied possibility of leniency people will voluntarily give up their rights
“The most memorable moment of the recent Democratic National Convention was when the father of a Muslim U.S. Army captain killed in Iraq demanded of Donald Trump, “Have you even read the United States Constitution?”
How appropriate that a lie would be the “most memorable moment” when the Children of the Lie have a convention.
Trump hasn’t proposed to violate the Constitution, unlike the demonrats.
Let me offer another interpretation.
Perhaps the police *can* tell who’s a bad guy, and these “innocent” citizens are actually guilty as sin. As cradle-to-the-grave criminals, though, these feral scumbags are very good at avoiding arrest.
Our irredeemably corrupt and depraved political class, and especially their propaganda arm, are all too willing to accept the lies these scum tell, and create a narrative in which racist cops prey on innocent blacks.
We need to give cops more latitude, not less, up to and including the authority to shoot fleeing suspects.
As for probable cause, how about “He was dressed like a criminal; he walked like a criminal; his facial expressions were those of a feral scumbag; his speech was peppered with underworld slang; and he just generally looked crimey?”
Cops know a dirtbag when they see one.
Not really, I live in Texas and they’ll just bring a dog and of course get a positive hit to search. Plus run everyong in the vehicle for warrants.
With many so-called "conservatives" cheering all the while...
Let’s remember not only the clearly illegal searches and seizures, but also the ones that are “legal” via 50 years of outrageous Supreme Court decisions. These cross all lines of race and sex and religion and income and status and political affiliation.
These are only a few that come to mind immediately:
- Smith vs Maryland, which enables the warrantless NSA dragnet of every phone call and every text of every person — because the phone company uses phone numbers to try to determine who is making obscene or harassing calls
- Dog sniffs of anybody and everybody and any and every vehicle anywhere, supposedly because they will “alert” only on contraband and never, ever make a false positive on your old Sausage McMuffin wrapper or a few hairs from your own dog on your passenger seat or because your neighbor’s dog wizzed on your tire or because you stepped on some dried dog poop six months ago
- The misleading implication of the following kind of conversation, which is just one of many templates regularly employed: “Mind if I come in and look around a little?” “I refuse to consent to any warrantless search.” “Do you want to spend the night in jail?”
- That any “mistake made in good faith” by law enforcement, or that can be claimed to be such, i.e., lying about an “observed” traffic infraction, the smell of alcohol, etc., does not nullify a clearly illegal search
You get the idea.
Unfortunately it’s not illegal to be a dirtbag in this country.
Three weeks ago, do gooder social workers claiming to be
worried about me, declared my house trailer to be uninhabitable, condemned it and made me homeless. Friends
have taken me in.
“Unfortunately it’s not illegal to be a dirtbag in this country.”
A dirtbag is as a dirtbag does.
If he didn’t commit a crime yesterday, he will today or tomorrow.
Persecuting cops for rousting punks is not merely stupid; it is suicidal.
There was an old quaint reason why trials were held in court rooms. Have we “progressed” “past” this?
Prosecuting any malefactor is not wrong.
“There was an old quaint reason why trials were held in court rooms. Have we “progressed” “past” this?”
Not in the way you mean.
We have been “progressived” out of it using the same methods the left has used in other areas.
Many trials never happen because the police are hamstrung by ridiculous leftard crap. That’s what we need to get past.
“Prosecuting any malefactor is not wrong.”
I think we’re working with different definitions of “malefactor.”
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