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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Justices to hear warrantless search case Mon Mar 24, 4:15 PM ET WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court stepped into two criminal cases Monday, one that will help define the limits of warrantless police searches and the other interpreting a law on guns and domestic violence. Five police officers from Utah asked the court to consider whether officers may enter a home without a search warrant when an informant already is inside and sees evidence of a crime. The case against Afton Callahan of Millard County, Utah, will test whether the officers who conducted the warrantless search may be sued by the person they arrest. Six years ago, an informant contacted police to tell them he had arranged to purchase drugs from Callahan at Callahan's trailer home. Wearing a microphone provided by police, the informant entered the trailer, made the deal and signaled police. They entered the trailer without a warrant and arrested Callahan for possession of methamphetamines. Utah courts ruled that the evidence that was seized from Callahan's home could not be used against him. Other courts have allowed prosecutions to go forward under similar circumstances. Callahan later sued the officers for violating his constitutional rights. A federal judge ruled the officers could not be sued because there is disagreement in the courts over whether the search is illegal. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver said the lawsuit could proceed because the officers should have known that people have a right in their home to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Under a 2001 ruling by the Supreme Court, courts first must determine whether an action amounts to a violation of a constitutional right and then decide whether the public official, often a police officer, should be immune from the civil lawsuit. Justice Stephen Breyer has been trying to get his colleagues to abandon the rigid two-step test. Breyer has said judges should sometimes go right to the immunity question. The case is Pearson v. Callahan, 07-751. In the second case, the court will consider Randy Edward Hayes' argument that the government was wrong to charge him with violating a federal law barring people convicted in domestic violence cases from possessing firearms. In 1994, Hayes pleaded guilty in Marion County, W.Va., to the minor crime of battery following an incident in which his wife was the victim. In 2004, police responded to a domestic violence call from Hayes's home and found a Winchester rifle. They later discovered that he had possessed at least four other rifles following his 1994 guilty plea. Hayes was indicted on federal charges of possessing firearms following conviction of misdemeanor domestic violence, a reference to the 1994 case. Last year, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., agreed with Hayes's argument that the language of the West Virginia law on battery in the 1994 case needed to contain specific wording about a domestic relationship between the offender and the victim. In the Justice Department brief asking the Supreme Court to hear the case, the solicitor general said nine other appeals courts have rejected the interpretation adopted by the appeals court in Richmond. The case is U.S. v. Hayes, 07-608. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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