Posted on 06/15/2006 7:53:40 AM PDT by NinoFan
Breaking... Major 5-4 decision. This case was reargued and apparently Alito cast the deciding vote.
It's right next to the separation of church and state clause. Near the right to abortion amendment.
It's all in there, you just have to look with the special socialist glasses the ACLU hands out.
Reading transcripts is like reading tea-leaves. A justice may ask tough questions not as an indication of how he or she may rule, but rather to reinforce their own reasoning. The decision is made after oral argument, not during (generally).
Consitutionally, it doesn't. If you're a drug dealer with "product" needing disposal, it would make a BIG difference. :-)
THIS IS GREAT NEWS! THE GOOD GUYS WIN ONE. THE DEMOCRATS MUST BE CRYING IN THEIR BEER.
I agree.
1rudeboy, look, I've read plenty of SCOTUS transcripts and sometimes you are right, especially when it comes to O'Connor. However, in this case, it was obvious where she was going to go. Trust me. Even if we didn't have the transcript to assist us, we know her style. This decision flatly refusing to apply the exclusionary rule to this situation wasn't her MO at all.
If they've got enough probable cause to get a warrant, why give the alleged perps enough warning to get rid of any evidence? Actually, I'm po'ed that it was 5-4. This seems like a legal no-brainer to me.
"What the knock-and-announce rule has never protected...is one's interest in preventing the government from seeing or taking evidence described in a warrant. Since the interests that were violated in this case have nothing to do with the seizure of the evidence, the exclusionary rule is inapplicable," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion in Hudson v. Michigan (04-1360)
Fair enough. I'm just leery of the O'Connor-as-stabilizing-force meme in the media.
Exactly right. Can you imagine Sandra going along with something like that? No, when she gave the originalists a victory, she always refused to join clear statements on the law, only narrow ones that refused to say anything and left her wiggle room to side with the lefties later. This is the first of many decisions in which Alito will make a very important difference, not just in the line-up of the vote, but in the quality of the opinions.
Obviously, they don't have to wait at all.
The first reply to this by DU was, of course, "Police state." I'm actually shocked they didn't get a mention of Hitler in there.
It is mind boggling how so many here consider the expansion of the power of the state to be "conservative."
Oh, I agree. The reason the media puts it in every article about the Court is clear. However, this is the rare case where I think we can honestly say that Alito cast the deciding vote.
O'Connor's style was to come up with complex decisions based on fine-tuned application of minutae. Believe me, she would have ruled for AND against with a series of "tests" that police must follow to differentiate between legal and illegal knocking.
Exactly. And neither police nor citizen would have any idea how the decision applied to the real world.
Lug, they have to have a warrant. So with a warrant in hand, why risk the cops and/or losing evidence by making like an Avon lady and knocking?
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