No Knock-Knock
Gamble Rogers, the late Florida folksinger and story-teller, used to spin a hilarious tale about the execution of what he called an "Alabama search warrant."
That, Rogers would say, is when the sheriff stands at the front door and knocks, whereupon the deputy standing at the back door yells "Come on in!"
But now the U.S. Supreme Court has spun a different kind of knock-knock joke, albeit not nearly so amusing. In this one, the sheriff doesn't even have to bother to knock. Just shout "Police!" and burst through the door.
The Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches of one's home simply doesn't mean much anymore. That's because this court seems less committed to protecting the constitutional rights of Americans than expanding the already fearsome authority of government to intrude upon our privacy.
In deciding, on a 5-4 vote, that police executing search warrants are no longer obliged to observe a "knock-and-announce" rule that has its roots in 13th century English common law, the court has fairly gutted the constitutional right of Americans to feel secure in the privacy of their own homes.
Indeed, so far as Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the majority opinion, is concerned, all that Fourth Amendment expectation really boiled down to was "the right not to be intruded upon in one's nightclothes." Reduced to such triviality, it was certainly not deemed to be of significant weight to offset the government's right to send squads of masked SWAT officers into private homes in the dead of night in search of evidence of criminal activity.
This decision for all practical purposes voids the "exclusionary rule" that prohibits the prosecution from using evidence that was seized illegally. It is also just one more indication that this new Supreme Court majority has a frightening bias toward government authoritarianism.
When even the formality of an "Alabama search warrant" is no longer deemed necessary, is the Fourth Amendment still worth the parchment it was printed on?
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200660620032&source=email
That, Rogers would say, is when the sheriff stands at the front door and knocks, whereupon the deputy standing at the back door yells "Come on in!"
But now the U.S. Supreme Court has spun a different kind of knock-knock joke, albeit not nearly so amusing. In this one, the sheriff doesn't even have to bother to knock. Just shout "Police!" and burst through the door.
The Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches of one's home simply doesn't mean much anymore. That's because this court seems less committed to protecting the constitutional rights of Americans than expanding the already fearsome authority of government to intrude upon our privacy.
In deciding, on a 5-4 vote, that police executing search warrants are no longer obliged to observe a "knock-and-announce" rule that has its roots in 13th century English common law, the court has fairly gutted the constitutional right of Americans to feel secure in the privacy of their own homes.
Indeed, so far as Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the majority opinion, is concerned, all that Fourth Amendment expectation really boiled down to was "the right not to be intruded upon in one's nightclothes." Reduced to such triviality, it was certainly not deemed to be of significant weight to offset the government's right to send squads of masked SWAT officers into private homes in the dead of night in search of evidence of criminal activity.
This decision for all practical purposes voids the "exclusionary rule" that prohibits the prosecution from using evidence that was seized illegally. It is also just one more indication that this new Supreme Court majority has a frightening bias toward government authoritarianism.
When even the formality of an "Alabama search warrant" is no longer deemed necessary, is the Fourth Amendment still worth the parchment it was printed on?
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200660620032&source=email
posted by R7 at 8:37 AM
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