The Supreme Court is putting limits on the ability of police to search vehicles when they do not have a search warrant.It's nice to see that the 4th Amendment still has a few teeth left in it.
The court sided 8-1 Tuesday with a Virginia man who complained that police walked onto his driveway and pulled back a tarp covering his motorcycle, which turned out to be stolen. They acted without a warrant, relying on a line of Supreme Court cases generally allowing police to search a vehicle without a warrant.
The justices said the automobile exception does not apply when searching vehicles parked adjacent to a home.
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
A Slight Pushback to the Police State
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2 comments:
I think they need some pushback, because even with good, settled law, it still depends on which cops, court, and judge you get whether that law does you any good.
In '95, the house in Berkeley I was living in got raided and they caught the landlord in the shed in the back yard with ten grams of methamphetamine.
They also came into the main house, where I was asleep on the couch after a long, tiring day at work, and my brand new housemate was in his room, which they searched, found his bong, papers, and a smidgen of leafers, and charged him with possession for sale.
I went to court to testify for my housemate, and saw his public defender question the cop who led the search, officer Hart, about the search:
PD: It says on the search warrant that you had permission to search the backyard shed and garage only, but you searched the main house. Why did you do that?
OH: We just thought we might find something.
Now my mother worked for criminal defense attorneys for twenty years or so, so I knew right then that any competent attorney could have had my housemate's case thrown out, but judge Jennie Rhine just sort of shrugged, and the questioning continued without pause.
I know that the cop who came in my front door and woke me up by pointing his gun at me probably saw himself as a brave public servant trying to root out crime in the community, but all I saw was an adrenaline addled twentysomething who couldn't seem to hold his gun still while he pointed it at my head.
-Doug in Oakland
There are attorneys who are not fit to litigate a parking ticket and judges who couldn't work a pie-eating contest on their best days.
Sort of like most other professiona.
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