Supreme Court Guts 4th amendment

[jimmy olsen]

Fuckers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-rules-5-3-that-mistakes-by-officer-dont-undermine-conviction/2016/06/20/f1f7d0d2-36f9-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html

Sotomayor's fierce dissent slams high court's ruling on evidence from illegal stops

Here's what Justice Sotomayor said in her fiery dissent
Play Video2:05

On June 20, the Supreme Court voted 5 to 3 in a case involving evidence seized after an illegal police stop. Here's what Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her blistering dissent. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

By Robert Barnes

June 20 at 6:44 PM  

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that courts need not throw out evidence of a crime even if the arresting police officer used unlawful tactics to obtain it.

But the low-profile case more likely will be remembered for a fierce and personal dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said the decision would exacerbate illegal stops of minorities. Her 12-page opinion explained "the talk" that black and brown parents have with their children about police interactions, invoked Ferguson, Mo., and, without direct acknowledgment, referenced the sentiments of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The court voted 5 to 3 to reverse a decision of the Utah Supreme Court that threw out drug-possession evidence seized from Edward Strieff in 2006.

Monday's U.S. Supreme Court majority agreed that South Salt Lake police officer Douglas Fackrell did not have reasonable suspicion to stop Strieff as he exited a house being watched for drug activity. But once Fackrell radioed in and found that there was an outstanding warrant on Strieff for a traffic violation, he was able to arrest and search him, and the discovery of the drugs was legitimate, the justices ruled.

"While Officer Fackrell's decision to initiate the stop was mistaken, his conduct thereafter was lawful," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority. He said the intervening discovery of the warrant meant the search that discovered the drugs was allowed.

The ruling was unusual in one way because it was the first time since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia that one of the court's consistent liberals — Justice Stephen G. Breyer — joined colleagues on the right to create a conservative majority.

But more memorable will be the blistering dissents written by Breyer's fellow liberal justices Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, joined at least in part by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Kagan's was a point-by-point disagreement with "the majority's misapplication" of the court's precedents, a ruling she said offers police "incentive to violate the Constitution."


But Sotomayor — "writing only for myself, and drawing on my professional experiences" — produced the kind of personal essay that has made the court's only Hispanic member a hero to liberals and caused conservatives to label her an activist.

"The white defendant in this case shows that anyone's dignity can be violated in this manner," Sotomayor wrote. "But it is no secret that people of color are disproportionate victims of this scrutiny."

She referenced writers Michelle Alexander, W.E.B Du Bois and Ta-Nehisi Coates, and wrote of the conversations that minority parents "for generations" have had with their children, "out of fear of how an officer with a gun will react to them."

"By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time," Sotomayor wrote. "It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged."


The strong language came in a case that had gotten little attention. It involved the Fourth Amendment's protection against unlawful searches and seizures and a court-developed standard called the exclusionary rule, which excludes evidence obtained by police in an unlawful manner.

The Utah Supreme Court found that the rule applied to the situation involving Fackrell and Strieff.

Fackrell in December 2006 was checking out an anonymous tip that a house was being used for drug sales. He watched the house for about three hours over the course of a week.

At some point, Fackrell decided he would question the next person he saw leave the house, which was Strieff. Fackrell explained his purposes and asked Strieff for identification. He called in the information and found that there was a warrant for Strieff's arrest on a minor traffic violation. He arrested Strieff, searched him and discovered drugs.


The Utah court said the evidence must be suppressed, because Strieff had no reason in the first place to suspect that Strieff had done anything wrong. It said the only way the search could be legal was if, after the initial stop, Strieff admitted to a crime or consented to the search.

But Thomas and the majority disagreed Monday.

The "discovery of the arrest warrant attenuated the connection between the unlawful stop and the evidence seized from Strieff incident to arrest," Thomas wrote.

Fackrell's initial instinct was unlawful, Thomas wrote, but there was no reason to believe that it was "part of any systemic or recurrent police misconduct. To the contrary, all the evidence suggests that the stop was an isolated instance of negligence that occurred in connection with a bona fide investigation of a suspected drug house."

Thomas said that "were evidence of a dragnet search presented here," the outcome might be different.

Besides Breyer, Thomas was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Sotomayor replied that "the Fourth Amendment does not tolerate an officer's unreasonable searches and seizures just because he did not know any better."

She added: "Respectfully, nothing about this case is isolated."

She and Kagan both noted that outstanding warrants are now a common feature in American life. A Justice Department report in the aftermath of the riots in Ferguson found that there were 16,000 outstanding warrants in the city of 21,000 residents.

"The states and federal government maintain databases with over 7.8 million outstanding warrants, the vast majority of which appear to be for minor offenses," Sotomayor wrote. "We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by police are 'isolated.' They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths, civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere."

The case is Utah v. Strieff.

[11B4V]

 Cool

[CountDeMoney]

"While Officer Fackrell's decision to initiate the stop was mistaken, his conduct thereafter was lawful," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.

You hear that, 11B? " Fruit of the Poisonous Tree" is out.  Now you don't have to retcon your statement of charges anymore!

PROBABLE CAUSE? MORE LIKE JUST BECAUSE!

[dps]

Timmay's Retarded Headline of the Day (tm) had me hoping they'd thrown out the exclusionary rule, but nooo.

[11B4V]

"While Officer Fackrell's decision to initiate the stop was mistaken, his conduct thereafter was lawful," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.

You hear that, 11B? " Fruit of the Poisonous Tree" is out.  Now you don't have to retcon your statement of charges anymore!

PROBABLE CAUSE? MORE LIKE JUST BECAUSE!

Potentially huge.

[11B4V]

Sir your license plate illuminator is out

No it's not

Oh, so it isn't. My bad. By the way, what's that in your center console.

[sbr]

Timmay's Retarded Headline of the Day (tm) had me hoping they'd thrown out the exclusionary rule, but nooo.

Why would you hope for that?

[dps]

Timmay's Retarded Headline of the Day (tm) had me hoping they'd thrown out the exclusionary rule, but nooo.

Why would you hope for that?

Because it's a stupid rule.  The way to prevent illegal searches is to punish the police who conduct them, not to hid facts from a jury.

[Barrister]

Timmay's Retarded Headline of the Day (tm) had me hoping they'd thrown out the exclusionary rule, but nooo.

Why would you hope for that?

Because it's a stupid rule.  The way to prevent illegal searches is to punish the police who conduct them, not to hid facts from a jury.

Cops don't care about convictions in any event.  "Punishing" them by letting guilty people go free accomplishes nothing except letting criminals go free.

[Martinus]

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

[LaCroix]

Rules of the Justice Game

by Alan Dershowiz

I. Almost all criminal defendants are, in fact, guilty.

II. All criminal defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges understand and believe rule I.

III. It is easier to convict guilty defendants by violating the constitution than by complying with it, and in some cases it is impossible to convict guilty defendants without violating the constitution.

IV. Almost all police lie about whether they violated the constitution in order to convict guilty defendants.

V. All prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys are aware of rule IV.

VI. Many prosecutors implicitly encourage police to lie about whether they violated the constitution in order to convict guilty defendants.

VII. All judges are aware of rule VI.

VIII. Most trial judges pretend to believe police officers who they know are lying

IX. All appellate judges are aware of rule VIII, yet many pretend to believe the trial judges who pretend to believe the police officers.

X. Most judges disbelieve defendants about whether their constitutional rights have been violated, even if they are telling the truth.

XI. Most judges and prosecutors would not knowingly convict a defendant who they believe to be innocent of the crime charged (or a closely related crime).

XII. Rule XI does not apply to members of organized crime, drug dealers, career criminals, or potential informants.

XIII. Nobody really wants justice.

anyway, for the judicial branch to trust police departments to do their job and respect constitutionary rights harms the legal system. they are separate branches of government for a reason

(note, I haven't read the opinion, so the article could be a gross mischaracterization of what the opinion held)

[DGuller]

Timmay's Retarded Headline of the Day (tm) had me hoping they'd thrown out the exclusionary rule, but nooo.

Why would you hope for that?

Because it's a stupid rule.  The way to prevent illegal searches is to punish the police who conduct them, not to hid facts from a jury.

And who's supposed to punish police?  The same DAs that benefit from police cutting corners?  Given the record of a typical DA against cops who actually kill people, I would not trust them to really do anything to cops who merely cut the bullshit to get the guy everyone knows is bad.

[Berkut]

Timmay's Retarded Headline of the Day (tm) had me hoping they'd thrown out the exclusionary rule, but nooo.

Why would you hope for that?

Because it's a stupid rule.  The way to prevent illegal searches is to punish the police who conduct them, not to hid facts from a jury.

Cops don't care about convictions in any event.  "Punishing" them by letting guilty people go free accomplishes nothing except letting criminals go free.

If cops don't care about justice, then there is a much more fundamental problem in play here. I suspect that attitude is not just limited to cops though, and goes right up the chain.

[Barrister]

If cops don't care about justice, then there is a much more fundamental problem in play here. I suspect that attitude is not just limited to cops though, and goes right up the chain.

It's not that they don't care about convictions or justice...  But a police officer gets the big sense of satisfaction with making their arrest.  They've caught the bad guy at that point.  That's when they pat each other on the back for a job well done.

When it comes to trial, months and months have passed.  They've had dozens of cases in between.  If at that point a judge says "well the police forgot to read the Accused his rights" it just doesn't have any impact.  The officer has moved on emotionally.

[LaCroix]

wouldn't the punishment be to the police department rather the individual cop (then rolled down to the cop by the department)? department  just lost a case because jim fucked up--they're probably not going to be happy with him