Posted on 12/26/2014 7:31:29 PM PST by TurboZamboni
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 freedomoutpost.com ...
You understand perfectly.
That was then, this is not. The philosophy has changed.
If you enjoy going to jail you can.
What law school did you graduate from and when?
And worse yet, no one gives a damn.
Enforcement is not the point of focus. The point of focus is the controlling of the slaves. They use the enforcement mechanization as a means of control.
I haven’t gone to law school. However, unlike many on this thread, I’ve read the entire NC Supreme Court decision and the entire US Supreme Court decision. I’ve also read some of the decisions they cited.
This decision does not in any way gut the 4th Amendment. If you give cops permission to search your vehicle, they can. That has always been true. In 1790, if authorities wanted to search your wagon and you gave them permission to do so, it was legal.
I wish (though it will never happen) that legislators would make clear that in many circumstances involving police, any "consent" should be presumed coerced and any police who wish to claim they had permission to do something would be required to prove that it was genuinely voluntarily.
I would suggest that the vast majority of people who "consent" to searches really don't want to police to search, and don't believe that the police would be able to find a legal basis to search without consent, but believe (perhaps correctly) that the police will use their discretionary authority to make their lives more unpleasant if they refuse the search than if they "consent". I would not call consent given in such cases voluntary.
*ping*
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