Posted on 04/25/2013 12:21:24 PM PDT by JohnKinAK
The whole notion of the police "manhunt" is not a new American phenomenon. Cops chase bad guys, cops corner bad guys. Sometimes the bad guys give up quietly, sometimes they go down in a blaze of glory. But we've always had rules of engagement when it came to law enforcement interaction with the general public.
It appears all that got thrown out the window in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon terror bombing and the subsequent police chase in Cambridge, Massachusetts that came to a screeching halt in Watertown.
Seemingly, for the first time in the United States, we witnessed paramilitary-garbed law enforcement personnel forcing residents out of their homes at gunpoint. In some cases, the language used by law enforcement was menacing.
Because of the hysteria that comes after any terror event, the American people wanted the perpetrators caught and, in doing so, appeared to have allowed their rights against unlawful search and seizure to not be suspended, but removed.
How many times have we watched cop dramas on television where the police had a pretty good idea of where the bad guys were, but as they weren't sure, came to the door and asked permission to come inside to "have a look around"? The only time they ever bashed a door in is when they absolutely knew the bad guys were there. If there was ever any doubt, they'd have to wait... for a court order from a judge.
That did not happen here.
The police came to people's homes, ordered them to leave immediately at the point of a gun in some cases, and then entered their place of residence. It's never "consensual" when the person asking you for something has a gun in his hand. "Probable cause" is convenient, but in this case, very arbitrary.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
You can only imagine what happens if you suggest the cops didn't do any unbidden searches.
Well, your agreement or disagreement won't change the outcome of what took place in this case, or any future one where exigent circumstances (hot pursuit) takes place.
This is not the first time such pursuit has taken place, and it won't be the last.
Bottom line, it's constitutional, it's legal, it'll take place again in the future. People won't like it, but they have little recourse to 'the law' - as it is already deemed 'in their favor.'
Maybe we could do that ~ require people to post signs about what they think the 4th amendment means to them. If somebody wants a warrant, the house can fall in and nobody cares. If somebody says 'save me worry about warrants later', then you go in and save them.
The term 'unreasonable' was used for a very good reason ~
BTW, i do not believe in standing by while someone kills himself or others and it's only because the abortion crowd has command of the organs of state that I"m not out there stopping those guys ~ but they pull back the cops I'm on top of that.
"Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, quoted from a Congressional Report, "Drawing a Line in the Sand" which reveals 25 Americans are killed every day by illegal aliens. The estimate is 12 are murdered and 13 killed in traffic violations, mostly from drunk driving; over 9,000 Americans killed every year."
This is from 2006:
"Twelve Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That’s 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001."
In the interests of balance, there are some who dispute Rep. King's statistics.
I call BS on this uninformed Police State Apologetics!
The U.S. Supreme Court makes it clear that if officers knock or bang on a door and announce their presence and then become aware of sounds indicating the likelihood that evidence is in the process of being destroyed, those officers may enter the home without a warrant to prevent the destruction of such evidence. What is not permissible, however, is for law enforcement officers to bang on a door and immediately demand entrance to a home and threaten to break down the door if such entrance is not granted. The U.S. Supreme Court stated unequivocally that if law enforcement officers behave in this manner, it will constitute an actual or threatened violation of Fourth Amendment rights and is therefore impermissible
Every now and then one of them would escape ~ frequently they'd trael North to the nearest railroad ~ which would take them right through or near this neighborhood.
We'd lived here only a short while and one day a Jamaican crew member busted out and gone North.
Although it didn't happen, if the cops had come by and knocked on the door and asked if they could 'search' ~ you'd better believe I'd let them in. As it was they never came but we didn't sleep that night because EVERY NOISE on the street sounded just like a criminal breaking in the house.
Some of the people on these threads have said they'd demanded a warrant!
I've got some base jumping sites they can rent cheap!
www.npr.org/2013/04/22/178446136/boston-lockdown-extraordinary-but-prudent-experts-say"
The "lock down" was ordered by Patrick. As for searching, see post #45 by poster JohnKinAK.
The governor the the state set the “exigent circumstance” parameters, as I read it. This is far more common than many realize.
Well then jump out there and sue the Governor of the State of Massachusetts! (Or any other official that declares exigent circumstances.) I doubt you’ll get anywhere.
Actually, they may, as could the agreement or disagreement of others on FR. As jurors, we would have the authority and the duty to nullify government actions in an illegal search, even if the judge failed to exercise his responsibility to do so.
This was not "hot pursuit" as recognized by the Supreme Court, it was not based upon the need to circumvent the destruction of evidence, or the need to prevent the loss of life or serious injury. If you read Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, United States v. Lopez, 989 F.2d 24 (1st Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 872, 114 S. Ct. 201, 126 L. Ed. 2d 158 [1993]); and United States v. Sewell, 942 F.2d 1209 [7th Cir. 1991], the situations in which hot pursuit exceptions apply require a specific knowledge of a specific threat or crime in a specific location. The general search of Boston, or even Watertown, is nowhere near the strict limits for warrantless searches as prescribed by the courts. Police were not told that an armed robber had entered a specific home, the police did not see the suspect entering a specific home, nor did they observe a crime in progress inside these specific homes - other than their own unlawful entry. There were no exigent circumstances.
If we do not speak up today, those in government who consider the Constitution an inconvenience are more likely to repeat this excess, and we are more likely to be the victims tomorrow. If we do not know our rights, we are more likely to defer to the presumed greater understanding of lawyers who may deceive us in court on whether these searches were justified. Violations of the Constitution are almost never justified, and this is one of the typical cases in which the Constitutional was violated, one in which the excuse is grossly insufficient.
I don’t live in MA (Thank God), so I wouldn’t have standing with the courts. Hopefully there are at least 1 or 2 Liberty loving citizens who were affected willing to take on the system.
I didn’t think you knew either.
The fact that no pol has taken (dis)credit for issuing confidential, general search warrants should frighten you as it does me.
Indeed, and LE had just that, and a whole lot more. They knew the perp was afoot, they followed a trail of blood drops. They knew he was wounded, losing lots of blood, and was seeking a place to hide. He was a specific and very big threat to anyone in the direction he was traveling afoot. Their biggest fear, he would find or commandeer a vehicle... hence a complete lockdown of all streets in a area around where the trail of blood led them - and their determination to thoroughly search every building within the parameters of where they thought he could be.
As it turned out - their perimeters were off - he was a block and a half outside those perimeters. They didn't find him - a homeowner did. It is that homeowner that deserves greater recognition than all the LEO's put together.
Read the law - they had legal warrant to do what they did. And yes, from what I saw, they did a pretty crappy job of it - but they were operating within the law, although in many instances far to broadly, imho.
If anyone wants to blow 150 million in lawsuits, or more, they might gain some pittance of monetary compensation years from now - that MA citizens would have to cough up.
In other words, no one suffered a great loss of their rights as citizens of this nation.
I respectfully disagree.
Yes, understand - but you and any others that wish to stop the use of exigent circumstance use across this nation will have a very difficult and fruitless battle on you hands.
I read in one of the articles about this that it was the governor of the state that ok'd the use of exigent circumstance.
Then these would be down on paper -- paper that would have been handed to residents answering the knock at the door. Funny though I didn't see any papers handed to residents -- so that must be BS.
This is far more common than many realize.
Yep BS really is common these days.
No. Blood drops on my driveway, porch, boat, or threshold to my home are specific. A blood trail in the neighborhood is not. To lock down the area was permissible. To search homes with permission was permissible. Where was the urgent need to search a home over the objection of the homeowner, if any homeowners in Boston objected? They could have maintained their perimeter, requested a warrant for that specific address if they had probable cause, and searched lawfully. I don't know that anyone refused entry to the police and was searched anyways, but the point is the legal question of whether they have the right to search over such an objection. There is no precedent for a general search - none. Or do you have a specific case in mind in which the Supreme Court extended hot pursuit to also cover wide-ranging fishing expeditions?
Nope - officers in hot pursuit don’t have to wait for papers under exigent circumstances. If they chase a killer into your neighborhood, they won’t wait for papers, they continue the chase with ‘the paper’ deemed as written and delivered.
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