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The average person, confronted with cops asking if they can search her house or car, would not realize she has a right to decline.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse. The average person may not know but I bet the criminal does.

This is not a question of “convenience of law enforcement”. The fact is that if you have contraband in your house and police have to get a search warrant the contraband will be gone by the time they return.

So let's see, man standing two houses away has no right of privacy but one standing in the doorway does? You see how screwed up it’s going to get and how police will not know what rules to follow? "Oh, no judge I was standing in the yard, not in the doorway."

News report of the arrest: "The defendant/victim of police abuse, claims that the police officer lied to justify an illegal search. According to the victim, he was standing on the sidewalk and not in his doorway. The illegal search took place at 4 a.m. There were several bystanders who confirmed the victims statement. The officer has had two reprimands for overstepping his authority. Several people have come forward to testify that this particular police officer has a reputation for lying to justify previous arrests. This newspaper is calling for the police chief take action against the officer for illegally searching for and finding fifteen pounds of cocaine in Mr. X's private living room, before typing out an affidavit, getting a judge out of bed, and serving the warrant on the victim prior to making a legal search of the living room."

"The trial court rejected the claim because, it said, his wife had authority to admit police to their joint residence. But the Supreme Court took a different view: While she could have let them in when her husband was absent, he was present, and therefore had the right to bar their entry."

This is what the court said. Presence is what matters, not if you are standing in the doorway or not.

The requirement of a warrant protects the innocent, and, yes, the guilty. Our society is the better for it.

This is not a question of “convenience of law enforcement”. The fact is that if you have contraband in your house and police have to get a search warrant the contraband will be gone by the time they return...You see how screwed up it’s going to get and how police will not know what rules to follow?

So you are saying the police will have a harder time apprehending people with contraband...how is that not a question of "convenience of law enforcement"?

This is not a question of “convenience of law enforcement”. The fact is that if you have contraband in your house and police have to get a search warrant the contraband will be gone by the time they return.

That's always the risk, but if they are refused permission to search by an occupant they shouldn't search.

If they're afraid of the evidence disappearing, they can post officers to make sure nobody carries it out of the house.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, not necessarily statutes. There are 'way too many of those and they conflict.

The fact is that if you have contraband in your house and police have to get a search warrant the contraband will be gone by the time they return.

Contraband! Gasp!

So let's see, man standing two houses away has no right of privacy but one standing in the doorway does? You see how screwed up it’s going to get and how police will not know what rules to follow? "Oh, no judge I was standing in the yard, not in the doorway."

Sorry. I can extract no sense from this paragraph at all. Do you actually think that, since the court said "doorway", a person present must must actually be standing in the doorway?

The fact is that if you have contraband in your house and police have to get a search warrant the contraband will be gone by the time they return.

If they had drugs, they had to flush them and lose the money they paid (or were going to get) ... is that so far short of sufficient punishment that we have to violate the Constitution to make sure they're further punished?

This is not a question of “convenience of law enforcement”. The fact is that if you have contraband in your house and police have to get a search warrant the contraband will be gone by the time they return.

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I am further of opinion that it would be better for us to have [no laws] at all than to have them in so prodigious numbers as we have.
Michel Eyquem, seigneur de Montaigne. (1533–1592)