Oh good, 'cause the Fourth Amendment isn't circumvented quite often enough
The Supreme Court, by which I mean Justice Anthony Kennedy, has apparently decided that the Fourth Amendment only matters if the police screw-up deliberately instead of accidentally.
What can you say? I mean, while I have a little sympathy for the "sure, your Constitutional rights were violated, but if you're guilty, you're guilty, so whatever" point-of-view, we can't just ignore that pesky little document that provides the framework of out little 230-year-old social experiment because it's convenient. Can we?
Incidentally, there did use to be Supreme Court decisions where the breakdown of the Justices' voting was actually surprising, didn't there? These days, it's so blatantly partisan it's starting to get to the point where SCOTUS itself is becoming superfluous.
"They finally caught the killer
They found his skin beneath her nails
Squeeze him hard enough and he'll confess"
- Vendetta Red, Suicide Party
What can you say? I mean, while I have a little sympathy for the "sure, your Constitutional rights were violated, but if you're guilty, you're guilty, so whatever" point-of-view, we can't just ignore that pesky little document that provides the framework of out little 230-year-old social experiment because it's convenient. Can we?
Incidentally, there did use to be Supreme Court decisions where the breakdown of the Justices' voting was actually surprising, didn't there? These days, it's so blatantly partisan it's starting to get to the point where SCOTUS itself is becoming superfluous.
"They finally caught the killer
They found his skin beneath her nails
Squeeze him hard enough and he'll confess"
- Vendetta Red, Suicide Party
4 Comments:
The Court has been chipping away at the exclusionary rule for years. This is the latest strike. Apparently now the standard is "systemic error or reckless disregard for constitutional rights", whatever that means.
The problem with most 4th Amendment cases is that they almost always end up being cases where - if the Constitution is upheld - some horrible person goes free. The temptation must be awful ignore the Constitution (or, as in this case, repeatedly shrink it) to keep the horrible person locked up. But I'd expect better of Supreme Court justices.
Incidentally, on the kinds of cases my Department looks at (which don't tend to be the hot button cases you read about in the news), the breakdown of which justice votes for what is less predictable.
Yeah the polticizing of the Supreme Court is something that sort of comes and goes. It's happened before, mellowed, and happened again. Right now we've got some personalities on the court that probably make the dynamic seem even more political than it is, as well as justices for whom their political identity is a very important thing (Scalia, Ginsburg, and Stevens all come to mind). The younger Justices all seem less politically motivated, or at least more likely to keep those motivations quiet, so hopefully once some of the older ones head off, it will get to be less political.
"The problem with most 4th Amendment cases is that they almost always end up being cases where - if the Constitution is upheld - some horrible person goes free." Yeah, that was sorta my point, and while I understand how difficult those situations are, I have to side with upholding the Constitution because any restriction of the rights of the people could set a dangerous precedent. But then again, I'm not the one who has to stand up and announce my decision to the world, so who knows?
Well, as I said, I expect better of Supreme Court justices. It's not like they have to worry about being re-elected. In fact, that's the precise reason we DON'T want them to have to worry about being re-elected.
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