you're welcome
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 ...
And just how often is it that a person who refuses consent is allowed to leave without being searched.
"OK,sir...you've refused consent.But we don't need your consent to have our drug sniffing dog,which is on the way as I speak,take a few laps around your car".Then,of course,the dog will "hit" on the car (even if there are no drugs) and...well.you know the rest.
Exactly
you're welcome
Is this 2015?
All we need is a Convention of States to make more ammendments that will tell the supremes to stop ignoring the ammendments we already have.
Is the futility of the COS movement evident yet?
The SCOTUS is as corrupted as the rest of the govt. It started for me when they ruled a person’s private property could be taken through eminent domain and given to another private party. What was that 6-7 years ago?
If you are watching the mini series “Sons of Liberty” on the History channel the parallels from then to now will jump off the screen at you. The reset is coming.
The BIL has ten parts. One of those parts is there to protect the other nine. Among other purposes.
That opens up a rather large rabbit hole of abuse. But it seems The Federal Employees are quite skilled at effecting brand new law(not before practiced) designed to have that effect.
In this case however this issue should be that of State Constitutional limitations not Federal as the U.S. Supreme court has no legitimate jurisdiction over State & local police who are agents of State & local Government.
Unfortunately Washington’s employees in black robes have the habit of abolishing State Constitutions in their completely wreakless & clearly lawless edicts making.
Are there changes that need to be made in police training. Yes, returning to the continuum of force is certainly one of those changes. Practices in de-escalation, yes those need to be reinstated. I would like to see all officers equipped with cameras as well.
But if you limit law enforcement to only those crimes that the police officer can observe and take away the ability of the police officer to engage with the public when they suspect a crime, you are going to see a huge increase in crime.
I want a police officer to be vigilant. I want the police to be asking questions and finding out what is going on. Because when the police take an interest and show their presence, the bad guys go away. Either they leave on their own or they go to jail.
This case is NOT the camels proverbial nose. It is applying the same stop and engage rules for an individual walking down the sidewalk to an individual driving a car.
It’s old too.
About a month ago the same headline was posted here as breaking news and the misrepresentation had to be exposed.
The propagandists here are sickening.
Not breaking news.
The same distorted narrative was posted a month ago and debunked then as well.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3241173/posts
Complete misrepresentation of the facts noted in the decision.
Remember the exclusionary rule is a legal fiction of a liberal supreme court. There is no part of the Constitution that defines remedy for police wrongdoing.
I wonder if anybody wants to have that discussion.
I'm not a cop, or a lawyer.
But, I am expected to know EXACTLY what the law is, or I am subject to prosecution.
Holy crap. The joke turned out to be true.
She really IS a Wise Latina.
Very disappointed with Scalia and Thomas.
Not surprised about Roberts, he's compromised.
State and local governments collectively have shocking amounts of money at their disposal for political activities.
It’s actually desirable that people should think they are in control of the government, and the US public education system has done a fine job of this.
The important thing is to prevent the people from actually obtaining control of government in any policy area that would reduce the power of the ruling elite.
The ruling elite are quite happy to concede to popular whims on issues of little or no consequence to the ruling elite. It makes the little people think they are in charge, and gets them fighting amongst themselves over trivial matters. That’s the function of the student counsel that we call the US Congress.
They can ALWAYS claim to have smelled the odor of alcohol or marijuana to gain entry into a vehicle with this ruling.
They will simply claim it was in good faith. We’ve lost our republic I’m afraid. The constitution has yet another page torn from it.
Wow!
Therefore, the Fourth Amendment has no meaning.
If there is no penalty for violating the Fourth Amendment, then there is no Fourth Amendment. The penalty, which is the long-accepted premise that one can not use 'fruit of the poisoned tree', meant evidence collected in violation of the Fourth was not admissible. This is a small penalty, indeed, but it was effective. Now that there is no penalty, the right ceases to exist.
The Soviet Union had a similar take: They wrote a very lofty bill of rights like our own. The only difference was, the government could violate any of those rights without penalty. Ergo, in practice, the citizenry had none of those written rights.
I am starting to suspect that the Second Amendment is one of those matters.
I do not foresee the day when America charges the leadership with firearms. The leadership has too many toys: Drones, microwave heat rays, and of course the usual assortment of tanks, APCs, full autos, explosives, missiles, and ground attack aircraft.
Either this is old news or I am in the twilight zone.
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