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Supreme Court gives police a new entryway into homes (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/sc-dc-0517-court-search-20110516,0,3341161.story - broken link)
Quote:
The justices in an 8-1 decision said officers who loudly knock on a door and then hear sounds suggesting evidence is being destroyed may break down the door and enter without a search warrant.
Although “searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable," this presumption may be overcome when “the exigencies of the situation" make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that [a] warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” One such exigency is the need “to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence.” ...
Some courts, including the Kentucky Supreme Court, have imposed additional requirements—asking whether officers “ ‘deliberately created the exigent circumstances with the bad faith intent to avoid the warrant requirement’ ... Such requirements are unsound and are thus rejected.
The only dissenting justice was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. All other eight justices endorsed the other side, and the majority opinion itself was written by Samuel Alito. It's interesting how the court has been gradually narrowing the scope of the 4th Amendment over the years.
A lot of that is by public consent. How many Americans can even describe what the 4th Amendment says? If you don't know what you've got, you won't notice when it goes missing...
Doesn't surprise me considering Arizona v. Gant, which essentially prevented warrentless automobile searches in non-exigent circumstances, only squeeked by with a 5-4 majority.
Well, as long as "probable cause" includes the officer claiming later on that "I thought it sounded like you were flushing a toilet"...
Like when an officer fires and kills an unarmed suspect who was reaching into his pocket and the officer said, I thought he was reaching for a gun, gets only a small rap on his knuckles and gets sent on his way. Plus it's no secret that a lot of cops are 'roid raging (literally) control freaks.
Better get to like the police, because police are America's future.
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