Posted on 12/18/2013 1:15:11 PM PST by driftdiver
Police in Parker County had been watching Michael Fred Wehrenberg's home for a month when, late in the summer of 2010, they received a tip from a confidential informant that Wehrenberg and several others were "fixing to" cook meth. Hours later, after midnight, officers walked through the front door, rounded up the people inside, and kept them in handcuffs in the front yard for an hour and a half.
The only potential problem, at least from a constitutional standpoint, was that the cops didn't have a search warrant. They got one later, before they seized the boxes of pseudoephedrine, stripped lithium batteries, and other meth-making materials, while the alleged meth cooks waited around in handcuffs, but by then they'd already waltzed through the home uninvited. They neglected to mention this on their warrant application, identifying a confidential informant as their only source of information.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.dallasobserver.com ...
/johnny
I dont see a problem here.Your reasoning is but another part of the puzzle why we are where we are today. I hope to see your mugshot on the news one day, arrested for that "unregistered gun", using an ex post facto warrant. I will feel nothing but schadenfreude, because unfortunately it's the only way you Statists ever learn.
Department of Future Crime.
Department of Future Crime.
Unless you’ve got evidence of them previously robbing a bank you need a lot more than a warrant, you need them to commit a crime. You don’t get to bust people because you’re “pretty sure” they’re going to do something. Of course in the world of drug laws they’ve broadened definitions to the point where just about everybody is committing a crime. Remember if you have a coffee maker (aka, a heat source, a beaker and a filter) and any of a number of “starters” (like allergy medicine) according to the law you have a meth lab. Keep that in mind when cheering them busting people because they’re sure those people “will” commit a crime.
This went from arrest, pleading guilty, appeals court and finally the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
....Wehrenberg pleaded guilty to one count of possession and one count of intent to manufacture, getting five years in prison.....
Why did the guy enter a plea of gulity?
Avoids a trial. Not sure...but they might be able to enter additional crimes at trial.
So the 4th Amendment is null and void to you?
Warrants ex post facto are fine so long as justice prevails?
If justice is miscarried before just execution then how can a government be trusted not to contrive evidence in search of a crime?
Well it’s our foreign policy applied domestically.
“Minority Report” (Phillip K. Dick, about 1954)- a group of “precogs” in a closed room with no outside disturbing influences comes to a consensus that “probability” of a crime is very high, so the authorities (I would not call then “police”) are dispatched and arrest the designated perpetrator BEFORE the crime is consummated. The “minority” involved is the one outlier of the group of “precogs” that comes to different deductions and conclusions given the information provided, and in those instances when the authority fails to arrive in time, no crime actually takes place, as predicted by the minority member of the group. This throws into question the whole scheme, and results in a cloak-and-dagger pursuit to eliminate the now designated perpetrator, who happens to be the chief of the authority in control of this “precrime” section. The timelines tend to validate the notion of “free will”, that is, if a possible future is known, then steps may be taken to shift to a different outcome, and invalidating the report of the majority of the “precogs”.
Who are the “precogs” and how long have they been working for NSA?
Why did the police violate the 4th amendment?
If you bust in my front door, you damn well better have a warrant, REGARDLESS of what your "confidential informant" told you. This was not "in public", this was in a home, which is, in theory, protected space under the Bill of Rights.
tiny difference between a nation state which has pledged to destroy America and some guy in his home.
Thank the fine supporters of the war on drugs who have made this possible.
I agree with you
First they came for the drug dealers without warrants.
But I did not speak up because I was not a drug dealer.
Of course you are correct.
No one else understands that Texas is safer today because these brave police officers prevented a crime from taking place and arrested them before they were able to offend.
Potential criminals will think twice before thinking about committing a potential crime in Texas.
Furthermore, Texans will feel safer if they can report on their fellow citizens who they think may be pondering committing a crime.
But, don’t be surprised if an activist federal judge, citing the Bill of a Rights, sides with the potential criminals and against the people of Texas.
What happens when they start searching homes without a warrant looking for whatever the so-called authorities define as “illegal guns?”
This sets a bad precedent if left unchallenged.
Unless they are wanted for previous bank robberies, in which they are, in fact, bank robbers parked in front of a bank.
The question is, does this apply here?
IMHO, cops are beginning to be more of threat to our safety and civil rights than crooks...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.