So anyone who lived from 1896 to 1954 who thought that segregation was unconstitutional were wrong?
“…a man of infinite jest.”
Yes. It may have been morally wrong but (I assume you’re talking about a Supreme Court decision) it was constitutional. Myself, I would have argued then that since banning discrimination was also constitutional, we should address it in the legislature.
Because lawyers who argue before the Supreme Court have different standing than I do, it was up to them to argue that the situation was unconstitutional.
No matter where you go, there you are.
Also note that since I’m responding to your posts by point, I’m tacitly acknowleging that you have standing to argue that the exclusionary rules are immoral or have bad effects (although I obviously disagree). I claim, however, that you have no standing to argue that they are unconstitutional.
No matter where you go, there you are.
Bricker,
Way out of my ken, here, Bricker, I’m just a poor-old trial level prosecutor; I will defer to your appellate wisdom; at least until I get a chance to research it. 
“…a man of infinite jest.”
Just so I understand your point, Singledad, nobody but the 9 Supreme Court justices can determine what is constitutional; and they are never incorrect? The Constitution is whatever they say it is, and is not open to any other interpretations? Only people who appear before the Court can argue the constitutionality of an act? Interesting theory.
“…a man of infinite jest.”
**Bricker writes:
Now, to minorly hijack this thread for a moment, this suggests, under these circumstances, that the officer may use reasonable methods (including a reasonable degree of force) to search the suspect, and, if he comes up with a gun, the possession of which is illegal, it’s good evidence in a trial for illegal possession of firearms. If, OTOH, the officer were to find no gun, but instead find, say, an ounce of crack, said crack would not be admissible in a trial for illegal possession of drugs.
Are there in fact circumstances in which the courts will say, “You can search for this kind of evidence, but not that kind”? Or does good cause to search for any evidence mean that all evidence found in consequence is good, despite that the original circumstances did not justify it?
“I don’t just want you to feel envy. I want you to suffer, I want you to bleed, I want you to die a little bit each day. And I want you to thank me for it.” – What “Let’s just be friends” really means
Not quite.
In conducting a pat-down, anything the officer finds that does not exceed to scope of the search is admissible. The pat-down is designed to find guns, and you’re right when you posit that it would be admissible in a trial for illegal possession of a firearm.
If the officer pats the subject down and finds crack, we must analyze how, exactly, that happened. If he used the pat-down, for example, to reach into the suspect’s pockets, or down his underpants, and found the drugs, that would generally be viewed as exceeding the scope of the pat-down search. The crack would be inadmissible.
If, on the other hand, during the pat-down, he felt, through the outer clothes, a small hard object that felt as though it were wrapped in a plastic baggie, and if the officer could say that, based on his training and experience, that was a very common way for drug dealers to store crack cocaine and that the object he felt was consistent with crack cocaine… then he now has probable cause to conduct a search, meaning he may reach into the pocket and extract the object to determine if it is, in fact, crack cocaine.
The basic premise, then, is this: if the officer is in a position to lawfully observe the contraband, it may be the predicate for probable cause. And when considering a pat-down search, “observe” means touch as well as see.
To answer your “are there circumstances in which” question… yes.
A warrant must describe with specificity the things to be seized. If I am suspected of stealing tractors, and a warrant is issued to search my barn for stolen tractors, the cops doing the search would have no business opening a briefcase they found in the barn. A briefcase could not plausibly contain a tractor. If they found six kilos of laboratory-pure crystal meth, it would not be admissible against me, nor could it serve as probable cause to conduct another searchh for drugs. On the other hand, if they were searching the barn for stolen tractors and came across a full-scale meth lab, it would be admissible against me, and give rise to probable cause for another warrant to search for drugs.
- Rick
If they pat you down and feel some crack, they can immediately search you. But if they find the meth lab in the barn, they have to get a warrant before they can search for the drugs?
Why the difference?
Today for you, tomorrow for me.
Angel: My untrained interpretation is that if a cop can see something in plain sight, or can find plausible evidence of it during a permissible search then it’s good.
If an officer hears a scream from your barn then enters it and finds your meth lab, that would be admissible evidence. But if the cop just decides, “I have a hunch about this guy,” and then opens the barn, the search would be illegal and the evidence inadmissible.
No matter where you go, there you are.
Wait. Well, first, don’t most warrants include phrasing like “or any other material which reasonably indicates a crime has been committed” or words to that effect? In other words, hasn’t the USSC offered some wiggle room to the level of specificity required for evidence to be admissible? Second, I find it hard to believe, even absent a specific notation of drugs in the warrant, that a court would suppress a huge quantity of drugs found incident to a lwafully executed search warrant. Is there case law? Or are you specifically referring to drugs which were found in the briefcase vs a stack of drugs in plain view on a table?
This discussion is rapidly rising well beyond my extremely limited scope of knowledge so I don’t have that much of any substance to contribute. One thing I did want to say is that a couple of people have argued against the exclusionary rule on the basis of its relatively recent creation. I submit that this argument is groundless. The age of a constitutional ruling is, except in questions of stare decisis, irrelevant.
Otto:
The scope of a search warrant may be extended by language such as you mentioned, but even in that example, it will not cover a briefcase. The briefcase, standing alone, is not “evidence of a crime.”; its a briefcase. In order to open it, the officers would need an additional search warrant.
However, the “plain view doctrine” would allow officers to seize and use the meth lab. But since a briefcase is not readily identifiable as evidence of a crime, it would not be able to be used at trial.
In Bricker’s example, the huge cache of drugs that were found in plain view (i/e the meth lab) would be admissible. The drugs, no matter how much, that were found in the briefcase would be inadmissible. The exclusionary rule should not take into account the seriousness of the offense (i/e a murder weapon gets suppressed just like a single joint). There is no flexibility.
“…a man of infinite jest.”
I was wondering if anyone knows about this:
It appears that Terrell’s killers may go free because a judge excluded evidence and granted their motion to suppress. Again, why have the exclusionary rule to keep out evidence?
From the Terrel story:
It sounds to me based on this extremely limited information that the judge may have made an error in excluding the evidence. But…“encountered the evidence” how exactly? Was it sitting on a table, on the floor, in a drawer? “Ascended a flight of stairs” where? Inside the residence? Up to the door of the residence? If there was probable cause for a search that day, why didn’t the police get the warrant that day instead of the next? If there were two other children in danger, why was the cop not able to prove exigent circumstances? And does the blame for this really fall on the judge or the exclusionary rule, or does it fall on the social worker who failed to show up the first time the grandmother was in court? Why was this child returned to the grandmother in the first place?
Lesson number one: it is well-nigh impossible to determine, from newspaper articles, the salient facts of a particular case, or the correct legal standards to apply thereto.
Police, in addition to their primary role of law enforcement, also have a secondary traditional role: that of “community caretaker”.
For example, if a police officer walking by a house sees a person inside the house appear to lose consciousness and fall down, he may enter the house in an effort to render aid. He may do so without a warrant, or any belief that a crime has been committed - since, after all, it’s not a crime to faint.
Once lawfully in the house, if he observes a meth lab in plain view, he may use that to secure a search warrant.
From the impassioned rhetoric and limited information of the article, the author seems to suggest that the officer in question was exercising his community caretaking role, by attempting to ensure that minor children were not left unattended. This is a legitimate argument.
If however, the officer had already found the body of the first child when he entered the dwelling, it strains credulity that he had not reverted to his primary role as law enforcement. Are we to believe that, with a dead child found, the officer in question had no purpose other than the check on the welfare of other children? Nonsense. If he found the dead body and proceeded to enter and search the house without waiting for a warrant, he screwed up. Period.
It’s useless to speculate, because we don’t know the facts. However, we do know this: the trial court that heard the motion to suppress did hear the facts, listened to the witnesses, judged their credibility, and made a determination. The court was in a position to do this; we are not.
- Rick