Posted on 03/06/2008 8:43:52 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Citing recent killing rampages in the United States, a federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out a Maryland firefighter’s claim that Gaithersburg police unreasonably searched his home and took his collection of 41 guns and ammunition after responding to a report that he was armed, suicidal and could be a threat to his co-workers.
In a 3-0 ruling, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the police were justified in conducting the warrantless search and seizure in an era of unprecedented domestic carnage at schools, workplaces and shopping malls.
“Police, then, simply must be entitled to take effective preventive action when evidence surfaces of an individual who intends slaughter,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote for the panel. “Respecting the rights of individuals has never required running a risk of mass death.”
The Gaithersburg police responded quickly and forcefully after receiving a call from a health care hotline operator on July 23, 2002.
The operator said she had just spoken to Anthony Marc Mora, who said he felt suicidal, had weapons in his apartment and could understand shooting people at work.
“I might as well die at work,” the hotline operator said Mora told her.
The operator called police at 1:02 p.m. and police were en route to Mora’s apartment by 1:03, Wilkinson wrote; by 1:13 they had him handcuffed on the ground.
The police, without a warrant, then searched his apartment, luggage and van. They found a .32 caliber handgun in a suitcase. In the apartment, they found a large gun safe in the kitchen, which they opened after Mora “relinquished the combination under pressure,” the 4th Circuit added.
The safe contained 12 handguns, eight rifles, a shotgun and keys to a second safe, which held more guns, ammunition and gun accessories, for a total of 41 firearms and 5,000 rounds of ammunition. Police took Mora to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.
Compelling need
Mora, who voluntarily committed himself and stayed at the hospital for several days, later sued the police, alleging they had violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure when they entered his house without a warrant and seized his guns. Mora argued that the police could easily have secured a warrant first, as he was handcuffed at the time of the search.
The city of Gaithersburg and its police countered that the warrantless search and seizure were constitutional because of the compelling need to protect the public from the possibility that Mora had planted a bomb or had an accomplice inside his apartment. The U.S. District Court agreed with the city, prompting Mora’s appeal.
The 4th Circuit affirmed, saying the state’s interest in protecting public safety trumped Mora’s constitutional claim that the police needed a warrant before searching his home and seizing his property.
“The authority to defuse a threat in an emergency necessarily includes the authority to conduct searches aimed at uncovering the threat’s scope,” Wilkinson wrote. “Searching Mora’s bags, car and home was thus part and parcel of defusing the threat he presented, and just as police had the authority to seize him without a warrant in the course of defusing that threat, so too could they conduct a warrantless search of his surroundings.”
The court added that recent violence across the United States, both before and after the controversial search and seizure, shows the Gaithersburg police were justifiably concerned about potential danger that could ensue if they did not act quickly after encountering a suicidal individual who had allegedly expressed a willingness to kill others.
“At Columbine High School in Littleton, in Blacksburg, Omaha and Oklahoma city, America has had to learn how many victims the violence of just one or two outcasts can claim,” Wilkinson wrote, referring to deadly school shootings at a Colorado high school in 1999, Virginia Tech University in 2007 and a Nebraska mall in 2007, and the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma in 1995.
“These new predators are not terrorists in the ordinary sense; they are not linked to foreign powers or international organizations hostile to the United States,” he added. “They are often isolated but heavily armed, filled to the brim with rage and anguish, and bent not just on murder, but on indiscriminate slaughter, followed frequently, by suicide,” he added. “Violent derangement is nothing new, of course, but the atrocities seem to be growing at once more shocking and more commonplace.”
Joining Wilkinson’s opinion were Judges Dennis W. Shedd and James P. Jones, a judge on the U.S. District Court for Western Virginia who was sitting on the panel by designation.
L
This is insane. There has to be some standard. A phone call to police? Come on.
Arrest him and take him in for evaluation, that I could get. But putting him under duress to coerce the combo to his safe out of him is effed up in the extreme. This goes from taking a threat seriously to asshattery in about 2.2 seconds...
“The operator said she had just spoken to Anthony Marc Mora, who said he felt suicidal, had weapons in his apartment and could understand shooting people at work.
“I might as well die at work,” the hotline operator said Mora told her.”
It does sound like the guys rights were violated, but if he said the things he did, he set himself up.
This stinks on ice...
Chicken Littles should never be judges.
Note to self, never call a “hotline”.
“Respecting the rights of individuals has never required running a risk of mass death.”
Except, of course you happen to be a suicidal maniac held in Gitmo. Then you should have all the rights and protections provided in whats left of the Constitution normally held for US citizens.
One very good reason why I only keep a small amount of my collection at my house. The majority of stuff is off-site where the man cannot find it.
And don’t forget, under the anti-terrorist acts, the President can now suspend the Constitution at any time, by mere Executive Order. My only question is - why should he bother? The Courts have eviserated it already.
Torture? Waterboarding?
One very good reason why I only keep a small amount of my collection at my house. The majority of stuff is off-site where the man cannot find it.
Good idea.
That's BS. Jesus, parts of the USA are looking more and more like the damned Soviet Union.
Lots of problems with this case, needs to be appealed on the face of it.
The guy made a call to a hotline incriminating himself?
While I understand and share the concerns stated here, this guy brought it on himself. I don’t think his rights were violated.
My sentiments, exactly
The search was still unreasonable. He was under arrest where they can hold him for 24 Hours. There was no need to perform a warrantless search. The police that violated his rights broke the law and should face penalty for doing such. If they have no consequences this pattern will continue and get worse.
Ravenstar
Nonsense. No fair just making stuff up.
The funny thing about this thread is that the very same people that think this is some kind of violation of this guy's rights, would be crowing the loudest for the heads of the police had they done nothing and this guy actually ~did~ go on some kind of rampage.
This guy called himself into a suicide hotline and made explicit and credible threats. The operator did the *right* thing by alerting the cops. The cops *also* did the right thing by quickly locating and arresting this guy. They had probable cause for the arrest and for the search. This time they actually got it right.
Horse$hit. Once they had seized him the immediate threat was over and they should have had to get a warrant.
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
No, His arrest and being held for evaluation was fine. The search and the duress crap were illegal plain and simple. They should have obtained a warrant as is required by the Constitution. They broke the law because they were lazy and perhaps because they are all wrapped up in the power they have given to them by jurists that are usurping power as well.
Ravenstar
Taking him into custody is a given under the circumstances. The search and seizure is a tougher call. I think they should have gotten a warrant. It’s the kind of requirement that shouldn’t be allowed to be overlooked.
I agree completely.
Am I wrong in thinking that this set s a really bad precedent? Or is that just paranoia?
“The guy made a call to a hotline incriminating himself?
While I understand and share the concerns stated here, this guy brought it on himself. I don’t think his rights were violated.”
It sounds like this entire action was predicated on the word of some hotline operator. Was there a recording made of the phone call? Did the operator produce some call ID log to substantiate the origin of the call?
I admit that I read the article quickly but it seems like a person called the police and claimed that a third party had said something disturbing. The police then went to the home of the third party, cuffed him and searched his house without substantiating the operator’s report or obtaining a warrant.
I have a problem with that! This is seriously scary stuff.
No one who took those measures would announce it on an Internet website.
This will be of professional interest to you.
Well, if it went down that way you are right.
Just because somebody isn't paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get him.
Unless there are more details that we don’t know about, I don’t have a problem with this. This was not an anonymous call to police. This was an operator from a mental health hotline who identified herself to police, and described what she reasonably perceived to be a danger to both the original caller and the general public. The way police dealt with this is called “common sense”, which used to be something that all of civilized society believed in.
The police had no way of knowing if “the immediate threat was over”. Somebody who’s crazy enough to call up a hotline and tell the operator that they’re home alone with lots of guns and ammo, thinking of suicide, and also thinking about shooting up people at work, is crazy enough to do just about anything. I don’t know that searching the safe was really necessary, especially if it was a heavy steel one that would have been contained a blast inside (it may have been one of those tin can safes, or plastic “firesafe” safes), but a thorough search of the house was appropriate under the circumstances, and the safe was in the house and the crazy guy was talking about doing things with the weapons in it. How many weapons did he have? Were they actually all in the safe, or just some of them? These are reasonable questions for law enforcement to get an urgent answer to when dealing with a crazy person who’s making credible threats of violence to others.
And if the guy just had an Arab name, many of the critics would suddenly switch sides and say the search was perfectly justified.
He hasn't even committed a crime. He just admitted that he was thinking about it in a conversation that was supposed to be confidential.
It does appear that his rights were violated. The police acted properly in responding to the call, but they didn't need to search his without a warrant.
Uh... the burden of probable cause for an ~arrest~ is all they need. Once an arrest has been made I don't think there's any requirement to go back for a warrant to search the premises. I'm not a cop or a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure about that.
Again, from what I've seen of this case I just don't see any rights being violated. I agree that vigilance is essential and we must be aware of infringements of our rights by authorities. I get that. I'm with you there. But this isn't a case worth setting ourselves on fire about, just yet. :-)
Yea, I’d have to agree with you.
Soon (If the RATs win) it will be "We don need no stink'n badges!".
Evidently there is no thing as doctor patient confidentiality on a “hotline.”
And, yes, if the man made statements that he felt suicidal and could understand killing his co-workers, then I have no problem with action. What bothers me is that an affidavit was not sworn by the hotline worker and then rushed to a judge on call for a warrant.
I mean, it is not like the police don’t know how to put the “suspect” under their eye to make sure he doesn’t go “postal.”
Not to be overly dramatic, but: If it were, say, your kid’s school that the guy said he was going to go shoot up... how long of a delay in getting a judge to issue a warrant would be OK with you? An hour? Two?
People here would be screaming if that’s what they did and all the while he’s getting started on his little rampage.
Probable cause is all they needed, and they had it, IMHO.
One of the things that makes a big difference to me, and perhaps it’ll make some difference for you and others, is the character of the reporting operator. I would agree that if this was just some anonymous phonecall to the police station, they wouldn’t necessarily be able to act on that alone. Then they ought to go talk to a judge and see if they can convince him.
But this call came in from a suicide hotline operator. Somebody that not only wasn’t anonymous, but who also talks to suicidal people all the time. Part of their job is to come to some judgment about whether the caller is a danger to themself or others and intervene if possible.
I think it is perfectly reasonable for the cops to rely on the judgment of this operator in formulating their response, and coming to a decision that they have probable cause to act immediately. That very different, to me, than just some anonymous caller who could have some unknown motive like merely trying to get his neighbor in trouble.
Overly dramatic? The police were en route in one minute and had him cuffed in 11 minutes from when he called. Since they knew where he lived, why couldn't they have responded to his address in the same amount of time and prevented him from leaving to commit the crime that you're presupposing. That would allow additional time to get the required warrants without violating his rights.
If he leaves to shoot up the neighborhood, then arrest him as he exits his property. Same result, less rights violated.
My thoughts exactly.
It's a crime to leave his property? There's no additional probable cause there than they had before.
C'mon, this is splitting hairs pretty fine.
The arrest and detain for eval was just fine. Now he can’t do any crime because he is under police control. Now you send one of the underlings that is really efficient in getting a warrant from a judge to search the house. Once the warrant has been obtained,You then ask the in custody person if they want the police to tear the safe up or use the combination which he can voluntarily provide. You don’t provide “motivation” as they would call it to give it to you before hand.
Ravenstar
Did he say he was going to shoot up anything?
Ours were! This sets another precedent if allowed to stand unchallenged.
The guy was in custody, under control, no extant or rumored evidence of extramural threats and a warrant could have been issued in hours or minutes.
Moreover, the monetary value of his collection seems to be in the process of being forfeited here even while his continued right to possess them ended when he checked himself in for mental evaluation and treatment.
It’s not the guns being rightfully returned that should be sought here but a reasonable reimbursement of the collections’ market value when sold or its equivalent if scrapped.
Laws are not licenses to steal.
Following your reasoning, they could have dismantled the house, stick by stick looking in all the voids revealed by the removal of sheeting, wallboards and roof.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.