LF: Supreme Court Rules Cops Can Break the Law to Enforce the Law

In another devastating blow to the 4th Amendment, on Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that evidence of an alleged crime can be used against a defendant even if police did something inappropriate or even illegal to obtain it.

In a split 5-3 decision, the justices voted to reinstate the drug-related convictions of Joseph Edward Strieff. In the case of Strieff, he was illegally detained during a “concededly unconstitutional detention,” which eventually led to the discovery of drugs inside his vehicle.

In Strieff’s case, a trial court judge later found that the officer did not have enough evidence to initially stop and question him. But the judge ruled that Strieff’s subsequent arrest on an outstanding traffic warrant justified the search — implying that the use of criminal behavior to catch criminal behavior is just.

The Utah Court of Appeals agreed with the trial court that the drug evidence was admissible at trial, but, in a moment of logic, the Utah Supreme Court last year reversed that decision.

The Utah Supreme Court noted in its January 2015 decision that the case presented “a gap of substantial significance” in terms of prior rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court on Fourth Amendment issues, and that other courts that have addressed the issue have come to “substantially different conclusions” regarding search and seizure law.

The Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule allows criminal defendants to suppress “fruit of the poisonous tree” — that is, evidence obtained as a result of a search or seizure that violates the Fourth Amendment. The reason this rule exists is due to the obvious conflict of interests in cops breaking the law to enforce the law.

However, thanks to Monday’s ruling by the Supreme Court, that is exactly what will happen now. Police have essentially been given a free pass to violate the rights of individuals — just so long as they find evidence of a ‘crime.’

On Monday, the logic applied by the Utah Supreme Court in 2015, was thrown to the wayside in a handout to the police state.

Given the reality of the militarized police state rising up from the horrors of the war on drugs, the fact that cops can now legally act illegally to bust people for possessing arbitrary substances is chilling.

As if breaking the law wasn’t enough, prior to this ruling, police were no longer required to even give the appearance of an understanding of the laws they’re tasked with enforcing, thanks to a recent court decision surpassing even the veritable green light previously granted in Heien v. North Carolina.

In the Heien case, the Supreme Court ruled a “police officer’s reasonable mistake of law gives rise to reasonable suspicion that justifies a traffic stop under the Fourth Amendment.” A motorist’s broken tail light caused an officer to make a traffic stop — during which evidence of a separate violation of the law was discovered in the vehicle.

But in North Carolina, a broken tail light wasn’t illegal, thus not sufficient cause to justify the stop — nor the arrests stemming from it, lawyers argued, because that would be a violation of unreasonable searches and seizures.

However, the Supreme Court ruled the officer’s ignorance of the law essentially didn’t matter — effectively allowing police around the country the ability to make stops if they ‘reasonably’ believe the cause for the stop is legal. Plainly, police can stop and search you despite ignorance of the law.

Now, in U.S. v Shelton Barnes et al. — a case that seemed to slip by largely unnoticed — even that flimsy justification has been deemed too constricting of police power, and police ignorance can actually be used against you in a trial.

On Monday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in dissent that the decision in Utah vs. Edward Joseph Strieff, is a blow to constitutional rights.

“The court today holds that the discovery of a warrant for an unpaid parking ticket will forgive a police officer’s violation of your Fourth Amendment rights,” Sotomayor wrote.

Sotomayor’s dissent was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Elena Kagan.

Now, police need not understand the law, or even abide by the law — to enforce the law. In what world is this considered acceptable?

This misstates the case. It is not about doing something illegal or inappropriate to obtain the evidence, but doing something which was not flagrant police misconduct, not with the purpose of obtaining the evidence ultimately obtained, but resulting in obtaining said evidence. The perp was arrested pursuant to an outstanding warrant and found in possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.

Given the hard-mindedness of Republicans on all matters, and given their refusal to follow Trump, it looks as though we're going to have a half- century or more of Democrat rule and Democrat control of the Court.

So, while your opinion of this holds for the instant, it will no longer be the case two years hence. By then, there will be a Democrat majority Supreme Court that will cut away all of this rather aggressively pro-police law.

You will do well to start to reposition your mind on such subjects, because if you don't, you will find yourself constantly at odds with the Supreme Court jurisprudence that will be the law for most, if not all, of the remainder of your life.

Actually, my opinion of the Opinion of the Court was not stated. I opined that Matt Agorist misstated the case.

Agorist claimed, "The Supreme Court ruled that evidence of an alleged crime can be used against a defendant even if police did something inappropriate or even illegal to obtain it."

One may disagree with what SCOTUS found, but they did not find what Agorist claimed they did.

Fair enough. It will go better for you in your life if you come to Sotomayor's position, because that is where the current will flow.

My ancestors were noble lords of France for 800 years. I have always been a member of the aristocracy, and I always will be. Serfdom is not in my blood.

That said, I do happen to give a damn about the peasants. I know from my past where the path we are on leads, for after serfdom comes revolution, which scythes down a generation of all classes and castes, irrespective of sex, age and morality.

Between Trumps eventual presidential win, this USSC ruling and the fact that as long as you breathe, there will always be a WOD's, you probably should end it all with a lead overdose. 168 grains ingested by way of mouth will do the trick

If Hillary is elected, that is where the current may flow. Justice Kagan may be the more influential justice. Justice Sotomayor will make an historic asterisk in Supreme Court history unless Hillary can appoint more such Living Constitution activists.

God help us all if the current flows to Justice Sotomayor. Considering the chasm between Justice Sotomayor and myself, I can't get there from here and am not inspired to try. Some of her sources make Obama appear conservative.

The case before the Court in Strieff was not a prosecution of the officer for violation of the rights of Strieff. The Court could neither find him guilty nor innocent of a crime, nor forgive him for a crime. The case before the Court involved the applicability of the judge-made exclusionary rule to the evidence found on the person of Strieff.

Justice Sotomayor strives to make this a case about Fourth Amendment rights, but it is a case about the applicability of the judge-made exclusionary rule. “[W]hether the exclusionary sanction is appropriately imposed in a particular case...is ‘an issue separate from the question whether the Fourth Amendment rights of the party seeking to invoke the rule were violated by police conduct.’” Hudson, infra.

This bit of legal legerdemain steathily slips in an allusion that the search of Strieff was without proper justification. However, the search was made only following knowledge of the outstanding arrest warrant, and the arrest of Strieff pursuant to that warrant.

Having executed a lawful arrest of Strieff, and taken him into custody, it was necessary for the officer to search Strieff. Strieff should have received another search at the delivery point.

Would Sotomayor rule that the officer, having been informed of the outstanding arrest warrant, was prohibited from arresting Strieff and taking him into custody?

If Sotomayor would rule that the arrest and taking into custody was lawful and required, would she rule that the officer was prohibited from searching Strieff incident to the arrest and taking into custody?

Would Justice Sotomayor rule that any search of Strieff at the jail would be prohibited as unlawful?

At issue is whether the search was lawfully conducted pursuant to the outstanding arrest warrant, or whether it was conducted pursuant to an unlawful stop, and the search was unlawful.

No other justice joined Sotomayor's dissent section IV. Ginsburg joined other parts, Kagan joined none of it. It may be relevant that, as senior dissenting justice, Justice Ginsburg would have assigned the writing of the primary dissenting opinion. The opinion of Justice Kagan, joined by Justice Ginsburg, may be the primary dissenting opinion. Also, for what it is worth, Justice Kagan wrote her 1983 Master's Thesis at Oxford University on The Development and Erosion of the American Exclusionary Rule: A Study in Judicial Method. Justice Kagan's dissent, joined by Justice Ginsburg, is the more professional, reasoned, and effective opinion.

The Justice should write about the instant case, the evidence in the case. Her professional experiences, whatever they may be, are not part of the case.

Justice Sotomayor invokes Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres, and W.E.B. DuBois and Te-Nehisi Coates. These folks are not exactly mainstream.

A Terry search is constitutional, per the Court, despite Justice Sotomayor's recited list of horribles.

As always, then, everything comes down to power. Which means, in the present instance, that everything comes down to whether the next President is Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

If Clinton, then Sotomayor's theories will be the dominant strain of Supreme Court jurisprudence for decades.

If Trump, then Scalia's will. Trump has already told us who he will appoint. Because the Supreme Court is the most powerful political body in America, that's what I really think this election is about: control of the Supreme Court (for domestic policy) and relations with Russia (for foreign policy).

While liberal theories would certainly be the dominant strain of Supreme Court jurisprudence, I have doubts that Justice Sotomayor can attract majorities for her more extreme viewpoints. I would more expect to see Justice Kagan become the dominant liberal justice.

In the grand scheme of things, conservative jurisprudence would still go on hiatus for a few decades.