Thursday, January 15, 2009

The US Federal Supreme Court Continues To Write Law

Yahoo has reported on the Supreme Court's latest ruling here, and this is from the article:
The Supreme Court said Wednesday that evidence obtained after illegal searches or arrests based on simple police mistakes may be used to prosecute criminal defendants.

The justices split 5-4 along ideological lines to apply new limits to the court's so-called exclusionary rule, which generally requires evidence to be suppressed if it results from a violation of a suspect's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches or seizure.
This gives police further ability to violate individual's rights with disregard, and the Supreme Court is essentially wiping their collective fat ass with the Bill of Rights.

The case that was being ruled on is as follows:
Coffee County, Ala., sheriff's deputies found amphetamines in Herring's pockets and an unloaded gun in his truck when they conducted a search following his arrest. It turned out that the warrant from neighboring Dale County had been recalled five months earlier, but the county sheriff's computers had not been updated.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said the evidence may be used "when police mistakes are the result of negligence such as that described here, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements."
So essentially, the police violated the individual's rights, but this is O-KAY because of a clerical error.

To top it off, this evidence is being used to further infringe on the individual's rights and charge him with a non-crime of holding an unloaded fire-arm and a chemical.

1 comment:

Chris said...

LOL. The conservative party! We're for the constitution only when it suits our needs! Just like Ron Paul and libertarianism! He supports its principles only when they don't contradict his religious beliefs!