Posted on 02/25/2014 4:59:06 PM PST by Altariel
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police may search a home without a warrant when two occupants disagree about allowing officers to enter, and the resident who refuses access is then arrested.
The justices declined to extend an earlier ruling denying entry to police when the occupants disagree and both are present.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the court's 6-3 decision holding that an occupant may not object to a search when he is not at home.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Alternatively, You’re driving down the road and the cops decide they want to search your home, so they pull you over, detain you by the side of the road, and have their buddies search your residence while they talk to you.
You’re not home to object, what’s the problem?
</sarc>
That's not actually true — the fourth, as written, can be broken into distinct parts:
They were already allowed by law to enter without a warrant in the event of a life threatening emergency inside.
It actually does if you look at the construction — indeed, unreasonable and warranted searches are prohibited thereby.
It'll never catch on — doing so would mean that the War on Drugs would have absolutely no legitimate basis, as it is derived wholly from expansions to government powers (See Wickard, and Raich), and the conservative
people cannot seem to realize that supporting the War on Drugs is absolutely contraconstitutional and that policy has been responsible for the degradation of 90% of the Bill of Rights.
> this is unconstitutional bullcrap.
> complete and full reset required.
Might be coming soon: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3126738/posts#comment
Consider the situation of roommates. Four people live together and share control over the home.
Three of them invite the cops in, the fourth objects. Should that objection automatically have veto power over the other three?
There seems to me to be a kneejerk reaction on the part of many freepers that almost any Court decision is a violation of constitutional rights. 4A does not however, prohibit all warrantless search, only “unreasonable” warrantless search.
The Court has decided, reasonably IMO, that if a person with legal right to do so authorizes the cops to enter, they can do so without a warrant. I would hope this would be applied as meaning someone with legal authority over the residence, not a child or guest.
The relevant issue is that a resident authorized entry. The cops still must get a warrant to enter an empty home.
I think you’re confused by some of the punctuation.
The Constitution has in a number of places some remarkably odd placement of commas. 2A and 4A being examples.
“You’re desperately trying to distract from his point.”
You are. His point was that a general warrant, good for years and everywhere, is unjust. It also has NOTHING to do with this decision.
“Instead of protecting the family castle, the king is treated like a common criminal, and the queen realizes, too late, that the system she trusted has worked against them both.”
Still, if the Queen gives the government permission to enter the castle, it is legal. Why would it not be? When has it ever been illegal for a wife to give entry to property?
“If ever there is a time for husband and wife to work together in unity, this is it.”
Well then...in this case, maybe the thief shouldn’t also beat his wife. Maybe the wife would be more willing to protect her criminal husband - and the guy was a thief - if he did not also beat her.
But if you live with someone, they have the right to invite others onto the property they share. Anything else takes away from THEIR rights. A woman should not need written permission from her husband to allow someone on their property.
It is amazing so many Freepers are eager to join with Ginsberg & Kagen and oppose Thomas and Scalia! Talk about idiots trying to join up with evil!
“Consider the situation of roommates. Four people live together and share control over the home. Three of them invite the cops in, the fourth objects. Should that objection automatically have veto power over the other three?”
Absolutely. Even though the home is shared, not everything in the home is communal. Three people cannot veto your right to refuse a search without a warrant, even if by doing so, they lose their ability to surrender their right and consent to a search.
“The Court has decided, reasonably IMO, that if a person with legal right to do so authorizes the cops to enter, they can do so without a warrant. I would hope this would be applied as meaning someone with legal authority over the residence, not a child or guest.”
Unfortunately, the police note that they are not mind readers, so have to take a person’s word that he has the legal right to authorize a search. And if he does not, the courts have ruled that is not enough to exclude evidence, because the police were acting in good faith.
To make matters worse, minors vary in what they can authorize at different ages. For example, at 16, they can have a learner’s permit to drive, so they can authorize a search of the car they are using, even if it is not theirs.
And the court uses the bizarre standard that if children are 14 or younger, they should know not to “open the door to strangers”, so they cannot give permission to a search. So if they *do* open the door, does this give them the right to authorize a search? Not yet determined.
“There seems to me to be a kneejerk reaction on the part of many freepers that almost any Court decision is a violation of constitutional rights.”
This is not an unreasonable attitude, because there are innumerable aspects to “security in home and person”, as well as warranted searches, and they continually vie with each other on many fronts. Therefore it is common sense to be very wary of court decisions that shift the balance of power, as it throws another unpredictable variable into the status quo.
But, “What’s another banana peel on an already slippery boxing ring?”
” The 4th Amendment does not prohibit all
warrantless searches.”
Actually, reading of the 4th does prohibit warrantless search. Those exceptions come from courts creating exceptions out of whole cloth, but they don’t exsist within the 4th.
I might have.
Please look at the structure in Post 102 and tell me where I messed up; the layout there presented seems to me to be the most natural construction (note that the comma-separated-lists are given in-line and not part of that layout).
The first clause protects against “unreasonable” searches.
Any search for which permission has been granted is by definition reasonable, as is any search for which there is a valid warrant. The courts have defined other sets of circumstances under which a search is “reasonable,” despite there being neither permission nor a warrant. For instance, a customs officer’s powers of search are quite broad compared to officers at point distant from the border.
A warrant obtained under false pretenses, as for instance by means of perjured testimony, might be overturned, which then normally invalidates any evidence found during the search.
4A prohibits “unreasonable” searches, not warrantless searches.
The court is correct: All it takes is one single person to allow entry.
Not true — even if the enema/colonoscopy guy [NM incident] had said "ok" (to a search) the multiple medical procedures were not reasonable and were actually dangerous.
The courts have defined other sets of circumstances under which a search is “reasonable,” despite there being neither permission nor a warrant.
The courts cannot be relied upon to define "reasonable" (just like they cannot be relied upon to define infringed
) &mdsah; his is why jury-trials are guaranteed by the constitution.
For instance, a customs officer’s powers of search are quite broad compared to officers at point distant from the border.
A customs officer has no legitimate authority outside of a port of entry, no?
What's to prevent me from classing a warrantless search as unreasonable?
Such a stance actually seems very reasonable as a warrant is to delineate the scope, purpose and target of the search; a search without these bounds is unconstrained and therefore I would consider it unreasonable.
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