Supreme Court Finds Constitution violates itself!

4th Amendment violation is totally cool as long as they find some paydirt

"The court today holds that the discovery of a warrant for an unpaid parking ticket will forgive a police officer's violation of your Fourth Amendment rights," Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

It's interesting to me that the "liberal" judges are the ones in dissent and the "conservative" judges are in favor of further eroding constitutional rights. Seems like it should be the other way around with Conservatives resisting change, while liberals push for change.

Not trying to flounder, just an observation. Maybe my idea of conservative/liberal is backwards, or maybe they're the backwards ones.

There should be no labels for Supreme Court Justices except "impartial". Party politics are supposed to be left to the other two branches. It is unfortunate for all of us that that is not the case.

Huckleberry wrote: There should be no labels for Supreme Court Justices except "impartial". Party politics are supposed to be left to the other two branches. It is unfortunate for all of us that that is not the case.

I was going to post a bunch of sardonic laughter, but this is too sadly true to get sarcastic about.

The idea of liberal/conservative being pro/anti change has always been something of a mislabeling. Rather than writing a long-ass post about the history of all this, I can sum up the problem with this thought experiment: Drop a conservative and a liberal in the Netherlands, and then see how anti-change the conservative is, and how pro-change the liberal is.

Can't say I go along with the notion of them finding the Constitution violates itself, just that they tossed it under the bus, again.

There is a difference between "Conservative/Liberal" and "conservative/liberal", but few people seem to realize that.

I forsee this going well.

The mere fact that more than one judge is required (be it Olympic figure skating, Supreme Court, whatever) represents definitive proof that their findings are just subjective opinions.

You can church things up by calling it “Signal Averaging” but at the end of the day, it’s all made up Bull E36 M3 cloaked in a robe to give the appearance of credibility.

So this constitution you speak of, it is the set of rules that the government is supposed to follow, correct? And the government also decides what rules will be on this document? And they will decide what the ramifications will be if they don't follow the rules?

That doesn't work. Try it with your kids some time. If it doesn't work on children it won't work on an even less responsible, less trustworthy group.

Plato called it a very long time ago about democracy and corruption. I'd be glad to give it a go at patching things up as benevolent emperor. So the trajectory goes democracy devolving to a demagogue which devolves into a tyrant, who will get pitched out, rinse and repeat. Then again Plato was a big fan of an aristocracy. Those work well

"But, but, what about the children?" I say that very tongue in cheek, however, it brings up an interesting point about what "the public" expects.

From just reading the article, I don't agree with the decision. However I did not read the original court case, so my knowledge is limited.

I do question what made his stop "illegal". Technically, changing lanes without a turn signal is "illegal". But, for the purposes of this, let's assume it was illegal to stop him.

Cop runs his DL and finds an outstanding warrant.
Guy is now arrested for outstanding warrant. During the search, cop finds drugs on him.
The warrant and drug possession get him put in jail.
Defendant argues that the drugs should not be submitted because he should not have been pulled over in the first place.
In this case, I agree with the defendant and against the Supreme Court decision.

However.....

Let's run a slightly different scenario.

Cop pulls over a driver for no reason.
Driver has a warrant for unpaid parking.
Driver is arrested and during the search the cop finds a camera showing the driver masterminded the entire Orlando shooting.
What do they do then?

Using that camera as evidence is a violation because it was (contrary to the SC decision yesterday) obtained under illegal circumstances. He would have to only be given the sentence for the parking ticket.
I'm OK with that and understand that to uphold the law in it's truest since, mistakes will be made. However, the public would lose their minds and demand that the guy be thrown in jail, the cop thrown in jail for "not doing more" and demand that congress make more laws "to protect us".

I'm open to opinions.

-Rob

Back to the subject and not politics in general.... this to me seems like we've definitely stepped past a line we shouldn't. This, if I'm reading htis right, states that an officer does not need a reason to stop and detain someone and can then search them to and arrest as they see fit.

Does no one read their history? This screams to me "Das Paperz!" Seriously. What if hte person refuses to give ID? Can they arrest for interferring with an investigation? How far do we let this go?

In reply to rob_lewis:

IIRC this was a stop on the sidewalk. No infractions, just a detective decided to run his ID with no PC, just because. Maybe it was the color of his shirt. Who knows. He runs the ID, finds the warrant and arrests him on the spot. During that search, he finds the drugs and away we go.

So... this decision has basically said that it's OK to stop people at the officers discretion and if they have a warrant they can arrest and anything found on them at that time is fine to charge them with.

This violates everything I understand about the 4th amendment.

Bobzilla wrote: In reply to rob_lewis: IIRC this was a stop on the sidewalk. No infractions, just a detective decided to run his ID with no PC, just because. Maybe it was the color of his shirt. Who knows. He runs the ID, finds the warrant and arrests him on the spot. During that search, he finds the drugs and away we go. So... this decision has basically said that it's OK to stop people at the officers discretion and if they have a warrant they can arrest and anything found on them at that time is fine to charge them with. This violates everything I understand about the 4th amendment.

Thanks for the info. I thought it was a traffic stop (not making it right), not a stop on the street (also not right). Again, I agree it's against the 4th amendment, but a more vicious crime than drug possession would not be accepted by the general public......

"Show me your papers" will come from the people, not from the leaders.

(On a different note. What if was a small town and the cop knew the guy and knew he had a warrant? I assume it's legal then because the cop had prior knowledge?)

-Rob

In reply to Bobzilla:

You would have a great time trying to understand the logic of someones only charge being "resisting arrest-without violence". "What are you in for?" "Resisting arrest." "What were they arresting you for?" "Resisting arrest."

The 4th amendment has already been declared irrelevant or they wouldn't be collecting, storing and whatever else they do with all of our phonecalls, text messages, emails, etc. I am not surprised in the least that the government ruled to give themselves more power and the people less power. That is what they do.

Bobzilla wrote: Back to the subject and not politics in general.... this to me seems like we've definitely stepped past a line we shouldn't. This, if I'm reading htis right, states that an officer does not need a reason to stop and detain someone and can then search them to and arrest as they see fit. Does no one read their history? This screams to me "Das Paperz!" Seriously. What if hte person refuses to give ID? Can they arrest for interferring with an investigation? How far do we let this go?

The implications here are ridiculous. It's a license for a warrant-less search of person and property. For basically no reason. Or any. And no doubt everyone can be arrested for something. I mean... have you taken tags off of mattresses and maybe done some other stuff too? I've used bug spray for purposes other than those defined on the label so I'm pretty much berkeleyed if someone wants to turn my house upside-down for posting this.

Where does it end is a really good question. It almost never works out for the tyrant but it's also never really a fun ride for the serfs either. Maybe Proles is a better label.

rob_lewis wrote: (On a different note. What if was a small town and the cop knew the guy and knew he had a warrant? I assume it's legal then because the cop had prior knowledge?) -Rob

Correct. But then the next question is how do you prove that in court?

I know better than to say I am confused.

Huckleberry wrote:

Bobzilla wrote: Back to the subject and not politics in general.... this to me seems like we've definitely stepped past a line we shouldn't. This, if I'm reading htis right, states that an officer does not need a reason to stop and detain someone and can then search them to and arrest as they see fit. Does no one read their history? This screams to me "Das Paperz!" Seriously. What if hte person refuses to give ID? Can they arrest for interferring with an investigation? How far do we let this go?

The implications here are ridiculous. It's a license for a warrant-less search of person and property. For basically no reason. Or any. And no doubt everyone can be arrested for something. I mean... have you taken tags off of mattresses and maybe done some other stuff too? I've used bug spray for purposes other than those defined on the label so I'm pretty much berkeleyed if someone wants to turn my house upside-down for posting this. Where does it end is a really good question. It almost never works out for the tyrant but it's also never really a fun ride for the serfs either. Maybe Proles is a better label.

IIRC, after Ferguson didn't the DoJ find that of the 21,000 residents of Ferguson, 15,000 had outstanding warrants? That means if a police officer stopped everyone on the street they came in contact wit, they could make an arrest 2 out of 3 times.

Bobzilla wrote: IIRC, after Ferguson didn't the DoJ find that of the 21,000 residents of Ferguson, 15,000 had outstanding warrants? That means if a police officer stopped everyone on the street they came in contact wit, they could make an arrest 2 out of 3 times.

That's also where there is serious questions regarding "debtors prison"- since they were putting people in jail for not paying a parking ticket.

As we are increasingly a society of criminals, is it any wonder that so many of our elected representatives are as well?

It'd be interesting to know how many of the outstanding warrants across the USA are for violent crimes.

T.J. wrote: The 4th amendment has already been declared irrelevant or they wouldn't be collecting, storing and whatever else they do with all of our phonecalls, text messages, emails, etc. I am not surprised in the least that the government ruled to give themselves more power and the people less power. That is what they do.

The vast majority of the population pretends to be outraged by this, when in actuality they continuously vote in favor of it. Just as long as they can convince themselves that they are safer, and as long as it's not them getting arrested...