Happy 231st Birthday, America!

[greybeta]

On this 231st birthday of the United States of America, I have to ask a question. What's the big deal about the following Supreme Court ruling?
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/16/MNGKKJFD5U1.DTL

Comments

[visgoth.livejournal.com]

Part of the reason police announce themselves when serving a warrant is to give the person inside time to comprehend that police are at the door.

You can find many cases where police served warrants on the wrong place, resulting in injuries, deaths, destruction of private property, and assorted legal hassels.

Personally, I'd rather let the occassional drug dealer try to flush his stock (a gambit which seldom works) than get into a gunfight because I assume that someone kicking down my door is a Bad Guy rather than a cop who has the wrong address. If I get a knock on the door and police announce themselves, I'll probably look out the window for uniforms, and open the door to find out what is going on. If my door is suddenly kicked in, I will almost certainly go for one of my guns. The police have no reason to be kicking in my door, so it is natural for me to assume that anybody who does has nefarious intent.

The decision says that even though the cops violated the terms of the warrant, the evidence is admissible. That means the police no longer have any legaly binding reason to wait before breaking down the door. They can violate the wait terms of warrants on a whim. That provision of the warrant may as well not even exist. In fact, many police will feel it is necessary to break in immediately to prevent Bad Guys from having time to prepare a defense. Of course, this also makes it more likely an innocent will try to defend himself, which will result in increased law-abiding citizen vs. police violence.

The decision also makes a VERY dangerous assumption. At one point it says that police are professional enough that they will make the right decision. If I accept that as true, what assurance am I offered that police in 30 years will have the same level of professionalism? None. None whatsoever. That's why we have laws restricting the behavior of police, to impose a certain level of behavior upon them because it cannot be trusted that the restraint they practice today will be the restraint they practice tomorrow.

As a closing note to this - I have several friends who are police officers. I believe most police join the force because they want to make their fellow citizens' lives better. I am grateful and humbled that they put on that uniform and step out into the world willing to fight and die for my safety. But I also know they are human and falible, just as I am, and they need rules to inform, assist, and temper their judgment and exercise of power.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

There was a case I was following on the Straight Dope messageboard where the OP's 90 year old neighbor was shot to death by the police. As the case developed, it became clear that they had NO REASON to be at her house. They did a no-knock warrant, but had to dismantle her security bars before entering (she lived in a bad neighborhood), so she knew that SOMEONE was coming in, and thought it was thieves. She got a gun. They saw it. They shot her. Also, they shot each other and blamed those injuries on her.

Then they tried to cover it up by claiming that an informant told them that there was a drug dealer living there when A) there wasn't, B) there was no reason to think that there was, and C) the informant had done no such thing.

The whole thing was a total and utter mess. The cops are in trouble, the judge who rubber stamped the warrant without asking questions is in trouble, everyone is in trouble. But the fact is that the law basically allows what happened, even though it shouldn't have.

Until such a time as our justice system can be reformed to where these sorts of things don't happen, I don't like the idea of giving the police any more power than they have.