Posted on 05/16/2011 11:44:39 AM PDT by jonascord
The Fourth Amendment expressly imposes two requirements:All searches and seizures must be reasonable; and a warrant may notbe issued unless probable cause is properly established and the scope of the authorized search is set out with particularity. Although searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are pre-sumptively unreasonable, Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U. S. 398, 403, this presumption may be overcome when the exigencies of the situation make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that [a]warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,
(Excerpt) Read more at supremecourt.gov ...
Comrade bubba Klinton stacked the courts at all levels with leftist judges. The pigeons are now coming home to roost. The only recourse is to remove these judges and replace them with ones that support The Constitution - if you can find any.
Scrap the 2nd Amendment? They don’t Need any excuse. It’s scrapped already.
22,311 Infringements. If That’s not Scrapped, ..... then what is?
ctdonath2:
Thanks for your sanity (having read the opinion) and level head. I hope you are not recieving the private flames I am.
Gwjack
If you face urgent circumstances, I’d say you have a valid case.
Hi savagesusie —
No explanation by me - just the actual words of the opinion. Eight of the Supremes have the opinion that police have that right.
Best regards,
Gwjack
That's the most notorious example.
We've been through the logic of exigent circumstances before, and when it comes to killing babies the judges and the old whores gotta' have their pound of flesh every single time.
We’re nowhere near that scenario.
Or is that really the way it works where you are?
Departments can pay dearly for officer misconduct.
And once cops act outside the law, their victims may choose to do so as well.
Well, you'll probably hear that from some of a more Libertarian bent here on FR....But neglecting that, and directing our attention to Muawiyah's case, it's a rather well developed point of 4th amendment law that an on-duty cop and or fireman would certainly have acted lawfully by doing the exact same thing as muawiyah did. Know a guy who did just that not all that long ago, as a matter of fact.
Taking things a bit further though, if upon entering to effect a rescue of the occupants of the burning structure, the cop noticed contraband in plain view (say, a bunch marijuana plants and grow lights on fire), the evidence thus obtained would be admissable anywhere in the US.
Having never heard that from any of them, I find that a dubious proposition.
Given that, whatever follows becomes eqully suspect.
UHHHH, I feel so unclean.
However, the majority of the Supreme Court did give law enforcement the right to knock on a door, listen, and then break a door down to gain entry when a warrant should have been obtained that was based on evidence.
I wonder how many police officers or people knocking on doors in the middle of the night are now going to be shot or greeted with a firearm.
bkmrk
Whew. Glad to hear that. I didn't recall seeing any other posts from you that indicated serious brain damage / grin
Of course there are those on FR who do believe that nonsense.
Which seems strange. Why would someone that seriously believes in the US Constitution believe that? Lib trolls, maybe.
” Eight of the Supremes have the opinion that police have that right. “
Ahhhhh - the ‘Infallible Supreme Court’ argument...
Perhaps, then, you will explain Roe v Wade to the rest of the class....
” Its about cops coming into your home without probable cause”
You didn’t read the opinion, did you?
It IS about cops coming into your home WITH probable cause. The issue is whether they can knock on the door, knowing that knock may be the cause of the urgency.
The case was that there was enough evidence for a warrant. Thing is, there is no law or verdict stopping a cop from just knocking on the door and asking questions. The act of knocking and announcing - no search, no entry, just “hi, it’s the cops, anyone home?” - prompted the occupants to start destroying evidence, which was evident to any reasonable observer.
The question before SCOTUS was whether the cops erred in doing a perfectly legal act which they knew might give rise to an urgency wherein a warrantless (and long-established legal) search became urgent. They could have just gotten the warrant, but they knocked on the door instead - a perfectly legal act - giving rise to a legal warrantless search.
So the question became: was the act, transitioning from legal grounds for a search warrant to legal grounds for a warrantless search by means of a legal act, legal?
Don’t argue further until you’ve read the opinion.
BTW: if the occupants had done nothing - not answer, and not destroy evidence - the cops would not have had legal grounds to enter without a warrant.
“This is how the drug warriors were able to trash the 4th Amendment - they got SCOTUS to grant an exception to the 4th Amendment because evidence might be destroyed. There is a special place in hell waiting for those that made this ruling (Rehnquist is already there).”
That is the truth. The only reason the cops are interested in drugs is the money. I been involved in one too many cases where the cops were more interested in the money and failed to uphold the law and people died. Sorry but you can’t sue them for not doing their job.
You certainly have that point going for you. This seems to be a long dissertation on why it’s bad to live next to a dope dealer when you are smoking dope and running your own drug business. You would think the Fraternal Order of Drug Dealers would have rules of conduct. The reasoning doesn’t actually expand police powers as much as it admits that cops behaving in a well documented and reasonable way are going to get better treatment from the courts.
Big kudos to the cops who wrote the reports and testified to made a record that overcame the presumption of unreasonableness.
Fire I went into was so hot it melted a coin collection. If that lady had MJ in there it was thoroughly roasted and turned to ash.
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