Posted on 01/27/2015 1:17:30 PM PST by Yellowstone Joe
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a blow to the constitutional rights of citizens, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Heien v. State of North Carolina that police officers are permitted to violate American citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights if the violation results from a “reasonable” mistake about the law on the part of police. Acting contrary to the venerable principle that “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” the Court ruled that evidence obtained by police during a traffic stop that was not legally justified can be used to prosecute the person if police were reasonably mistaken that the person had violated the law. The Rutherford Institute had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hold law enforcement officials accountable to knowing and abiding by the rule of law. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Court’s lone dissenter, warned that the court’s ruling “means further eroding the Fourth Amendment’s protection of civil liberties in a context where that protection has already been worn down.”
“By refusing to hold police accountable to knowing and abiding by the rule of law, the Supreme Court has given government officials a green light to routinely violate the law,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of the award-winning book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State. “This case may have started out with an improper traffic stop, but where it will end—given the turbulence of our age, with its police overreach, military training drills on American soil, domestic surveillance, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, wrongful convictions, and corporate corruption—is not hard to predict. This ruling is what I would call a one-way, nonrefundable ticket to the police state.”
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
I dont see anything wrong with this.
made up example : Police pull someone over because they think their inspection sticker is expired because it’s smudged or something or is hanging lose and is hard to read... it turns out it wasn’t expired, but as they are talking to the driver... they look in the back seat and see a dead body.
Are you telling me they shouldn’t be able to arrest them after seeing the dead body just because it turns out they didn’t have an valid reason to pull them over to begin with?
The supreme fascist court instigated the first civil war with its Dred Scott decision and suffered no consequences. This time the supreme fascist court faces judgement, including hanged by the neck until dead, in the imminent American-style Nuremburg trials.
This leads to what many in law enforcement for any purposes see/believe is their entitlement. My experience is that the young newbies are particularly prone to throw their weight around.
This leads to what many in law enforcement for any purposes see/believe is their entitlement. My experience is that the young newbies are particularly prone to throw their weight around.
The Wise One must not have understood the issue ...
I check it daily--you can, too. Each opinion is summarized in two-to-four pages, so you can get the essence without reading voluminously.
You may wish to bookmark it.
Thanks, I’ll do that
Thanks, I’ll do that
Thus my tagline. The Republic ended the day Congress decided not to stop the President from violating immigration law.
Well at least she has some marbles. I’m surprised at the “conserative” justices though.
Three of the four bloggers are attorneys, and among many other interests they follow Supreme Court cases from a conservative viewpoint.
See, for example, one of today's posts: "TRUST US, WE'RE THE GOVERNMENT, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TELLS SUPREME COURT."
The newbies are being taught an "us vs them" mentality reminiscent of the doberman puppies in Animal Farm.
So for us, ignorance is not a defense, but for those who are supposed to know and enforce the law, it is.
Yup. Go forth and change the courts accordingly.
You missed a key point - the cop asked to search.
What the hell every happened to “ignorance of the law is no defense”?
LMAO!!
I really appreciate. I’ll book mark them with the other link you gave me for later reference.
I call those people “knee jerks”
They have figuratively made having a toss-away gun, to be used for planted “evidence”, legal and can now shoot at will “just because”.
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