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Title: U.S. Supreme Court Limits Police Search Powers During Arrests
Source:
Bloomberg News
URL Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news? ... 87&sid=a.kbCVkBoPXM&refer=home
Published: Apr 21, 2009
Author: By Greg Stohr
Post Date: 2009-04-21 11:54:40 by Brian S
Ping List: *Jack-Booted Thugs* Subscribe to *Jack-Booted Thugs*
Keywords: None
Views: 214
Comments: 9
April 21 (Bloomberg) -- A divided U.S. Supreme Court limited police powers, ruling that officers violated the Constitution when they searched the car of an Arizona man who had already been handcuffed and put in a patrol car. Voting 5-4, the justices today overturned Rodney Gant’s three-year prison sentence for possessing the cocaine officers found in his car. The majority said police needed a warrant because Gant had already parked the car and walked away from it when police arrested him for driving with a suspended license. Writing for the majority, Justice John Paul Stevens said the search didn’t fall within an exception to the warrant requirement the court has carved out for searches that take place at the time of arrest. Stevens said that exception existed to ensure an arrested person didn’t grab a weapon or destroy evidence. “Police could not reasonably have believed either that Gant could have accessed his car at the time of the search or that evidence of the offense for which he was arrested might have been found therein,” Stevens wrote. The case split the court into an unusual alignment, with Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joining Stevens. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito dissented. Alito wrote that the majority effectively overturned two high court precedents. He said the ruling “will cause the suppression of evidence gathered in many searches carried out in good-faith reliance on well-settled case law.” The case is Arizona v. Gant, 07-542.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
Good faith my ass,,,
That good faith crap wasn't always there. It's recent in the last decade or so. In the past, you either obeyed the Constitutional restrictions on search and seizure or you didn't..then some commies came up with the notion "it's OK to violate the constitution of it was in GOOD FAITH." Wasn't that under Klinton??
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition why is it almost every SCOTUS ruling comes down to 5-4?
The smooth criminal transition from Bush/Cheney to Obama
The police need only adapt to the ruling by making the arrest before the motorist has the chance to exit and lock the vehicle. I'll bet 5 people a year don't outsmart the police and either avoid the search or have evidence suppressed because of this ruling once the cops get their briefing on how it applies and how to make certain that the driver is still with the vehicle and that "the officers were afraid of the motorist producing a weapon so a cursory search of the passenger compartment was performed at which time the 74 kilos of cocaine was discovered in a matchbox in the ashtray...." At which point the supreme court will uphold the searches, never doubting that huge quantities are found accessible to the driver and in unlikely containers as long as the cops follow the ruling as handed down.
I see lots more cars being 'impounded for safeguard' and then 'searched for inventory'. Trust me there isn't a constitutional change the Court can come up with that won't be run over by rogues when and if they want.
Well, it's usually the split along party lines even though Stevens is a liberal swing voter who was appointed by a Pub and does not reliably carry PUB water. When the Chief Justice joins the majority he is automatically privileged with writing the majority opinion of the court. In the past if the Chief Justice didn't approve of the ruling he'd side with the majority to "sabotage" and dress down the majority opinion of the court, thereby limiting the damage of the decision which he didn't like. In this case there was no advantage to that because the facts were so simple and straightforward that he couldn't side with the majority then opine that the police shouldn't in all similar cases be limited by the ruling. Otherwise it would have been 6-3. "The Chief Justice agreed with the majority and wrote that the motorist who is away from the parked and locked vehicle and who twirls the keys while whistling "DIXIE" should not be searched. Had the motorist pocketed the keys then the police would have been justified in searching the motorist, the locked vehicle passenger compartment and the trunk for weapons since the immediate pocketing of carkeys is indicative of mens rea or a guilty mind as would running from the police." (This is a hypothetical example of how a Chief Justice might mitigate the damage by joining with the majority in a ruling on which he does not really agree-his privilege of writing the majority opinion allows him to rule and to add or remove things never intended to be included or removed by the majority of the justices) And, instead of the usual Fascist Five agreeing on a decision it was a decision where the traditional conservos and fair minded liberals applied the constitution fairly and honestly, and two shit for brains Bush-appointed enemies of the constitution voted with a Reagan and a Clinton hack. The minority opinion was written by Alito, the other Bush blow job. Had the majority shared that opinion we can assume that the Chief Justice's opinion would have mirrored that penned by Alito. In other words on straightforward decisions like handing BushCo the elections where their loyalties (not necessarily their ideologies on ancillary issues such as "How much is enough raw police power?") are tested the Pubs will reliably do what is expected of them. But in this and other cases where traditional conservos and limited govt liberals who believe that the police are not and should not be omnipotent and perhaps believe that the prez should not have the power to expand the presidency by decree/signing statements we'll see splits that don't follow party lines. And, the ruling just happened to split 5-4 with no pattern that I can see or reliably predict in future rulings. Other issues such as SEC oversight, international maritime law insurance claims, state vouchers used for religious education, The SC flag, etc, (I'm, just spit balling here) we won't really know how any given justice feels until the specific facts force them to rule, and on these and many other complex issues there is no absolute DEM or PUB view that we can bank on from the SCOTUS. (Although I'll go out on a limb now and assert that Roberts and Alito will vote the same way Bush would want if he was still in power and in a position to exert a ROBOCOP-type of closing pressure on their "gene storage lockers". And in those cases these two BushCo hacks will vote for an all powerful president, unlimited police search and seizure, "good faith exceptions" where deadly force is used against a nun who scratched at the wrong time or a resident is shot because a light bulb burned out the instant the police made entry pursuant to search warrant served at the wrong address, etc., in other words the same way the King Meathead would want the ruling to go with no thought for or about the original intent of the founders who feared that type of govt.
To put it bluntly they no longer serve the constitution. Only the masters who appoint them and their idea of how things should be. At this stage I think they are relatively useless.
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms....The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson
Thanks for your insights, 'Dawg. Your observations are always thoughtful and give us interesting morsels to chew on. I agree that while the S.C. is a slender reed to hang all our hopes on in regard to the Bill of Rights, decisions like Boudemiene give me some optimism that the system is working the way it should, at least some of the time. Perhaps some of the detainees will get their day in court after all. Given His Highness's opposition, that may not be soon, but he cannot put the Court off for ever.
Join 2x4 Tuesdays & protect your RKBA. I couldn't agree more that the importance of that reversal of BushCo's madness was uplifting. I too was relieved and grateful to learn that the court's sensibilities (and therefore the constitution) can be offended and that the march into Hell was not as inevitable as Caesar Autistis regularly envisioned before masturbating himself to sleep. But, before I do the Snoopy Dance I remind myself that the court is nearly as arrogant and drunk on absolute power as the evil dwarf, but, they are generally better educated, probably not psycho and have some respect for the rule of law which they read with adult comprehension. And, because literacy is a moral condition I believe that those "lawyers who know a president" are probably cut from a finer moral cloth than the former president whose greatest accomplishment was exploding frogs without any apparent injury to himself or younger, unsuspecting children in proximity to his sadistic pastime.
Alito wrote that the majority effectively overturned two high court precedents. He said the ruling “will cause the suppression of evidence gathered in many searches carried out in good-faith reliance on well-settled case law.”
#2. To: Brian S (#0)
“will cause the suppression of evidence gathered in many searches carried out in good-faith reliance on well-settled case law.”
#3. To: Brian S, Esso (#0)
#4. To: Brian S (#0)
#5. To: Brian S (#0)
#6. To: christine (#3)
why is it almost every SCOTUS ruling comes down to 5-4?
#7. To: christine (#3)
why is it almost every SCOTUS ruling comes down to 5-4?
#8. To: HOUNDDAWG (#6)
www.righttokeepandbeararms.com
#9. To: randge, Rotara, christine, bluegrass, Rotara, TwentyTwelve, Jethro Tull, farmfriend, rowdee (#8)
...decisions like (Boumediene) give me some optimism that the system is working the way it should, at least some of the time.
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