[crampuff]

The Supremes have voted 5-4 now, that if there is an incorrect raid, or accidentally incorrect interogation, any evidence found is legal for prosecution: Accidental on purpose

So, if you are accidentally incorrectly stopped and they accidentally find cash on you, you can legally now go to jail.
Our rights as citizen, mahvelous.

[Maddog78]

This is a big deal, I think.
It will be easy for the Feds to make up any kind of accident they want, to do any kind of search they want.

[Jotapay]

Just stay away from the cops at all costs. Far away. Be invisible.

[smallpoxgirl]

Holy crap! That's huge. The exclusionary rule IS the fourth and fifth amendments. You don't have a right to resist an illegal search or seizure, so the exclusionary rule is the only protection giving them any real meaning. Without the exclusionary rule, you have no fourth or fifth amendment rights.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'H')oly crap! That's huge. The exclusionary rule IS the fourth and fifth amendments. You don't have a right to resist an illegal search or seizure, so the exclusionary rule is the only protection giving them any real meaning. Without the exclusionary rule, you have no fourth or fifth amendment rights.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yesplease', 'T')hat's the weird thing. The majority acknowledged that the search violated his constitutional rights too, so it seems like people can be charged even if they were illegally searched by mistake, but they can also sue the law enforcement agency in question for violating their civil rights. Yay for more litigation?

[yesplease]

I bet it'll come down to the severity of the crime. Is a police department really willing to get in what could be a million+ dollar lawsuit w/ a burglar trying to steal a $500 computer or someone growing "plants" at their place?

[seahorse]

I haven't read the actual opinion, only the article. So, like most things, the reporter may have it wrong, I don't know.

However, if the reporter is accurate, it doesn't surprise me, its just a continuation of increasing power by a fascist state. First, the endless war on terror justifying the Patriot Act, then the Military Commissions Act (which denies one the right to 4th, 5th and right of habeau corpus). So, if this article is accurate, it isn't surprising.

The ruling, if accurately portrayed, only buttresses my opinion that the Constitution is dead. Here's what I wrote way back when on the death of our Constitution:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t's with great sadness that I, a lawyer of 15 years now, a boy raised by his own personal Atticus Finch, a boy that once swore swore as a paratrooper to uphold and defend a Constitution, who swore again as an attorney to uphold that same Constitution, must now confess that that same Constitution no longer acts to limit the powers of the Government, but limits instead the will of the people to govern themselves, thus allowing the government to run amok.

The Constitution was a novel idea, a novel idea to create a contract between a government and its people. It was a contract whose intent was to protect its people by defining the powers of government in a written document, and in so doing, restrict the powers of the government to encroach upon the freedoms of the people who ulitimately constituted that government. It was the idea that government is of the people, by the people, for the people, reduced to writing, so that the powers of that government would be restricted, preserving the rights and freedoms of the people who constituted it.

Although novel in design, the ultimate effect of having a government reduced to writing meant that the people would be forced to look to its "limited government" to interpret the Contract that attempted to limit that same government. Is it any surprise then that the Presidents created by that Constitution have issued thousands upon thousands of executive orders, an authority not expressed in the Constitution, which also have the effect of law but are never approved by Congress? Is it any surprise that the Courts have ruled taxpayers do not having standing to sue their own government? Is it any surprise that the Courts have ruled there is no duty of the police to protect its citizens? Is it any surprise that the 4th Amendment is subject now to an undeclared war on terror? That the Patriot Act and various other legislation passed in the war on terror allows domestic spying without search warrants? Is it any surprise then that banks, regulated by our government, can limit withdrawals, place holds on safety deposit boxes etc? Any surprise at legislative "earmarks"? Any surprise that Congressmen always vote themselves pay raises, won't pass campaign reform, have free healthcare and wonderful retirement plans? These unexpressed powers and benefits of government service should not come as a surprise when it is the government that interprets its own "limited" powers.

In the end, reducing the government to a written Constitution did not limit our government. It did, however, turn the idea of subsequent generations away from the idea government is by the will of the people, to the idea that they had created a limited government that would, through benevolence for its people, restrict itself.

Our forefathers and our present generation falsely assume that government, that power, can be restricted or limited by a piece of paper. Reducing to writing the idea that power can be so easily restricted only acts to restrict the ideas of the people that read and believe the false notion that power can be so easily restricted. The false belief that gov't power can be so easily limited by a written Constitution has become a yoke around the necks of generations of Americans from which the nation can be pulled by the special interest that subvert it.

[Jotapay]

The constitution is being dismantled. Most people to whom I speak have no idea why this is important.

We deserve our current government. Americans are fools overall. I hope the NWO does accomplish their plan and reduce the population of these insipid people who inhabit America. They deserve their fate.

[The_Virginian]

another notch down the "slippery slope"

[Cloud9]

Only guys with guns will have to worry. Most everything else is going to be legalized or ignored.

[crampuff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'T')hanks God for this decision.
How else are we going to expedite all these case, try the criminals and keep the courts running smoothly? Why I remember my jury time. Three days for a simple robbery! There must have been one-half dozen court employees tied up on the guilty party. And all the electricity for lights and heating and meals and parking.
Lock the criminals up and throw away the key.
I like Cheney's idea better. Dunk him water. One gurgle-guilty. Two gurgles-free. (If he can still gurgle after a good long Cheney-Dunking? )

[crampuff]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'O')nly guys with guns will have to worry. Most everything else is going to be legalized or ignored.

[seahorse2]

I just read the full opinion. It's bad for individual rights. The case involved an old warrant that should have been pulled out of a data base but wasn't. The arresting officer made the arrest and search based on that warrant which should have been pulled.

The majority opinion creates a good faith exception, basically putting the burden on the individual to show that the officer knew or should have known the info was bad or putting the onus on the individual to prove that the data base system has problems that the police should have known about.

The problem? An individual cannot prove these things. As the dissenting opinion points out, there are all kinds of police data bases these days. There is no way for anyone to know if the information in them is current or complete b.s. Further, no individual is allowed info in those data bases, so how can an individual charged with a crime ever prove that the data in the system is corrupt, bad, or full of errors? Do you think the FBI, DHS, DEA, ATF, or any other agency is going to allow an individual access to their data base? No, and the courts won't force it. So, in the end, this is a real problem.

[Cloud9]

We shall see. The last time the Clintonistas had a war on terror a little bit of Texas went up in smoke.