So this looks to me like a pretty obvious violation of First Amendment rights by a vengeful politician. It may be technically true that the account was in violation of Twitter’s rules, since it wasn’t specifically labelled as a parody account, but surely the First Amendment overrides laws against “impersonation of a public figure” in this case, right?
I wonder if the marijuana arrest had probable cause other than TwitterStuff…
I’m thinking the marijuana was the probable cause for the Twitter parody.
If the police had a legitimate warrant, and search in a manner consistent with what’s on that warrant, then anything else they find is also admissible. Of course, that still leaves the question of whether the original warrant was legitimate, here, and I look forward to the court case arguing that it’s not.
I know nothing about the subject; a warrant may allow them to search for anything in the house?
Not exactly. A warrant specifies what they are looking for and where they can look. If they find evidence of some crime in the areas they are allowed to search, they can seize it and use it. But not if they go beyond the scope of the warrant. For instance, if the warrant says they can search your home,and they decide to go outside and search your car too, it’s likely whatever they find will not be admissible against you.
No, but if they are looking for flibbertigibbits as per the warrant and they find a mountain of cocaine in a bedroom, someone is going to jail for the coke.
ETA: Ninja’d by Boyo Jim! <shakes fist> And his answer was way more complete and detailed than mine! <shakes harder>
To take this further if say the warrant is to search for stolen auto engines and transmissions and one of the officers finds a oz of coke in a drawer of a bedroom night stand it probably won’t be admissible.
If on the other hand there are a couple of bales of pot in plain sight in the garage with the stolen engines somebody is going down.
God Bless the United States of Police State.
Some more info (emphasis added):
Figure this account was active 4-5 weeks, was properly labelled towards the end, and had since disappeared, but a thin-skinned mayor and his jackboots still raid a home over some tweets. And they’ll likely get away with it, and might even get a conviction or plea bargain using a poorly-worded law supposedly meant to prevent police impersonation.
All the talk about the scope of the warrant is fine, but what probable cause led to the warrant?
I assumed a check of IP addresses led them to the address they raided.
A raid for a misdemeanor that had been committed weeks ago seems a bit over the top to me, tho. I’m not sure it sends the message that the mayor wanted to send.
Meh, Voltaire was sent to the Bastille, twice.
I’m just aghast that a judge signed the warrant. The judges on Law & Order always seem hesitant without evidence of a crime having been committed.