Posted on 04/23/2008 10:25:33 AM PDT by kiriath_jearim
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court affirmed Wednesday that police have the power to conduct searches and seize evidence, even when done during an arrest that turns out to have violated state law.
The unanimous decision comes in a case from Portsmouth, Va., where city detectives seized crack cocaine from a motorist after arresting him for a traffic ticket offense.
David Lee Moore was pulled over for driving on a suspended license. The violation is a minor crime in Virginia and calls for police to issue a court summons and let the driver go.
Instead, city detectives arrested Moore and prosecutors say that drugs taken from him in a subsequent search can be used against him as evidence.
"We reaffirm against a novel challenge what we have signaled for half a century," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote.
Scalia said that when officers have probable cause to believe a person has committed a crime in their presence, the Fourth Amendment permits them to make an arrest and to search the suspect in order to safeguard evidence and ensure their own safety.
Moore was convicted on a drug charge and sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that police should have released Moore and could not lawfully conduct a search.
State law, said the Virginia Supreme Court, restricted officers to issuing a ticket in exchange for a promise to appear later in court. Virginia courts dismissed the indictment against Moore.
Moore argued that the Fourth Amendment permits a search only following a lawful state arrest.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she finds more support for Moore's position in previous court cases than the rest of the court does. But she said she agrees that the arrest and search of Moore was constitutional, even though it violated Virginia law.
The Bush administration and attorneys general from 18 states lined up in support of Virginia prosecutors.
The federal government said Moore's case had the potential to greatly increase the class of unconstitutional arrests, resulting in evidence seized during searches being excluded with increasing frequency.
Looking to state laws to provide the basis for searches would introduce uncertainty into the legal system, the 18 states said in court papers.
---
On the Net:
Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
Can the Police also ask Immigration status??
We are quickly becoming a fascist state. The tree of liberty is beginning to thirst
Nothing really all that new here. How did this make it to the Supremes?
This is good news for those police who raided the FLDS group looking for a man who wasn't there by a complaint phoned in by an adult posing as a teen half her age...
Unanimous decision?..............I’M shocked........or TASERED.......
Interesting comment.
Can you give us the names of some of the people you are thinking of killing?
Yep. Not sure if I like the decision, but it is what it is and I have great respect for Scalia. Pretty much shuts the door on any 4th amendment arguments from me on the FLDS raids.
I don’t like this at all. If a LEO wants to search a person who has done nothing, just arrest them first. It doesn’t matter what you arrest them for or if you even should have arrested them. Once they’re arrested, search them in hopes of finding something to really charge them with. Not good....
Yep. Why did the Virginia court overturn?
One of my favorite Jefferson quotes. Here is the full context...wonderful writing.
What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
If the police served a search warrant, signed by a judge, in which they were to enter a house that allegedly contained stolen goods and they found no stolen goods at all, but a large pool of blood in the kitchen, what should they do?
Say: "Thanks for letting us look around, we didn't find the stolen DVD players we were looking for, so you have a nice day, sir!"
Because the Supreme Court of Virginia held that the search was illegal, and SCOTUS wanted to slap them down.
The heck that the Virginia Supreme Court exhonerated the man because his rights were being violated, (getting arrested for a non-arrestable offense). Who needs States' rights anymore, now we have Bush, the Bushbots, the McCane liberals and the Communist liberals like Obama to tell us how it's gonna be. If paper could barf, the Constitution would be throwing up right now.
“Can the Police also ask Immigration status??”
Well, now you’re just being silly......
A good question, but there strikes me of some bad lawyering here, or at least a missed opportunity by the Virginia Supreme Court. Why didn't the suspect argue that the Virginia constitution prevents the search? Given the Virginia Supreme Court's ruling, that might have well prevented US Supreme Court review.
Without going into the oxymoronic nature of the phrase "states' rights", what violation of "states' rights" is in evidence here?
Basically, it’s being caught during the commission of a crime.
. "Nothing really all that new here. How did this make it to the Supremes?".
I'll tell you how. The Virginia police violated their own State law that mandates the 'perp's' traffic violation to be a non-arrestable offense. According to the law, the police were supposed to only issue the man a ticket and let him go. But they decided to arrest him for a non-arrestable offense, then seize and search his vehicle. Yet again, States' rights get trampled and we continue to lose our freedoms.
Bush Administration supported the appeal to the Supremes. But I wonder if Bush would have been on the prosecutor's side of the deal if his driving under the influence arrest was supposed to be only a ticket by State law, but they decided to arrest him anyway and search his car.
Anyone who thinks this is a good thing just doesn't have the capacity to look deeper into its ramifications now that a clear precedent has been set by the Supremes. Now, a back-door way to seize and search a person's car is to simply make a false arrest, and it will be completely legal. There is also the States' rights ramification, where the Virginia Supreme Court was overturned by the feds.
The headline suggests that, doesn’t it? I am very concerned about that but I believe the key phrase is “when officers have probable cause to believe a person has committed a crime.” I would hope the Court, when presented with a case where the probable cause was lacking or obviously deficient, would make the opposite decision. Otherwise, we’ve just flushed the Forth down the crapper.
Supreme Court Hands Down Virginia v. Moore: http://volokh.com/posts/1208965945.shtml
And when the cops don’t find anything, they can just drop something.
Having been on several threads with you over the years here on FR I would figure you would already know who might be on such a list ... BTW we are not yet down to that last “box” ... yet
Just fracking lovely...
So, to clarify, there are people in the US whom you definitely want to assassinate.
You just don't want to say which ones, preferring that the rest of us guess who your targets are.
The problem is that the courts always side with the cop regarding claims of a probable crime which eliminates any and all civil rights of anyone a cop chooses to harass. The law of today is "guilty until proved innocent." 4th amendment rights be dammed, they are gone.
I'm not a lawyer, so I really don't know how to present it in a proper way. But here goes. The man was arrested for a non-arrestable offense, according to Virginia state law. This false arrest was the means by which the cops were able to search his vehicle and find his drugs. The man appealed the conviction all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court, where they exhonerated the man because the means of the search and seizure was ILLEGAL in the first place.
If that doesn't say it well enough then I'm sorry. But it's extremely clear to me that this man got railroaded and the Virginia state law got slapped in the face, as did every America who enjoys the freedom the 4th Amendment affords him. If they want to search the man because they believe he has drugs then get a warrant. Remember those things? If they want to arrest him so they can search and seize his car then arrest him LEGALLY, for an ARRESTABLE offense.
At that point they have probable cause ... but if they are in the house looking for a stolen car, they don't need to be looking in the sock drawer for it ... sans keys
We could get into all kinds of semantics on this little scenario which is nothing like what happened to the FLDS. Where is the body? Is the blood human? is it from one individual or multiple? Too many questions involved for this to make any sense and weegee has the facts right. They raided on false claims and the man they were looking for wasn’t even there. It should have ended at the gate but using the super power of Janet Reno, they “found” other evidence that may be used against them. Personally, I am not ok with the idea of having to explain myself to the govt under any circumstances.
Ah yes, The supremes once again enhance the principles of individual liberty that made the USA great - Oh wait, I have that wrong. They enhanced the police powers of the state at the expense of individual liberty. What a surprise. I can’t help wondering how they’ll spin the Heller case to support the police powers of the state.
I ain’t no Constitutional scholar but does this mean that a cop can do a cavity search on you if you’re pulled over for a broken tail light?
From the link I posted: Virginia policy is that violations of statutory requirements by law enforcement officers should NOT result in the exclusion of evidence gained thereby. That is the Virginia policy. If the contrary rule were adopted (i.e., the rule rejected 9-0 by the Supreme Court), then Virginia would either have to change their law regarding when an arrest is proper or they would have to watch all evidence gained as a result of the statutorily prohibited arrest be excluded from trial, even though Virginia policy makers would prefer not to do so.
Are you smoking crack ? .... who said I wanted to assassinate anyone ... quoting TJ isn’t a profession of assassination
Apparently because they found it necessary to make it clear the probable cause is probable cause.
Enjoy your body cavity search for that broken tail light.
And don't go off on some tangent about search warrants. It is a bogus argument in this case.
Get used to acting like your living on a plantation. Don't ever say anything to the Master to make him the least bit angry, right or wrong the Master is always right.
Be doubly shocked. Scalia wrote the opinion, and Ginsburg wrote the concurring.
That’s exactly what they should do!
For all they know it was the remenents of dressing a deer.
Blood on the floor does not consitute a crime.
What if they saw ashes in the ashtray?
...cut the sofa cushions up to seach for pot...of course!
What if there was baking powder on the kitchen counter?
Tear up the house looking for cocain...of course!
What if they saw a screwdriver a mallot and latex gloves?
...check and see if the car in the driveway was stolen...of course!
What if they saw a knife, duct tape and plastic bags...of course!
...bring ‘em to the station for interrogation for potential crimes...of course!
What if there is a car stereo ont he table with no receipt?
Why...run the serial number through a database...of course!
Those are all FINE reasons to further interrogate!
As a matter of fact...maybe they should round up all the neighbors and taze them all repeatedly while the revenue enhancement officials giggle with totalitarian delight at the screams fo pain, until they all snitch crimes the others may have committed. That might clear a bunch of unsolved crimes off the books!
Then...well...it will come out as “probably cause” in the courtroom and flks like you will bea able to defned the actiosn as “justified”
Go ahead and snicker. The Sheriff in this area coerced false confessions out of MANY folks to clear the books! So please don’t say it couldn’t happen. It was quite the scandal.
So, now the cops don’t have to ask, “May I search your car?” they just place you under arrest for “Loitering on a steamboat landing.” and search your vehicle or person..........
I believe that the great majority of Americans would agree with you. But around here there seem to be a healthy share of authoritarian, "law enforcement" types who live their lives wearing blinders. The police have been 'trained', (brainwashed), into believing that they carry a badge forged by God Himself, so Constitutional freedoms mean little anymore. Also, they know once their badge is presented to an officer whose about to arrest them, say for a DUI, they'll be let go. So they aren't affected by the heavy-handed or illegal actions they perpetrate on others. Simply put, they are above it all. It's hard to blame only the cops though, because if the Courts didn't side with them every time an issue of Constitutional rights comes up, they'd be afraid to violate people with carefree abandon such as they do.
My guess is that what we had in this particular case is a Prosecutor who wanted to make a name for himself by appearing before the Supremes. States' rights took it on the chin, but who cares about trivialities like that when you're out to make a name for yourself? Who will take a bet with me that this prosecutor will soon be running for some higher office?
It may not have been an arrestable offense, but it certainly was an offense and they were certainly allowed to search him, imo.
If you get pulled over for failure to use your turn signals, you may very well be searched. I see no reason why evidence found in such a search wouldn’t be admissable in court.
Teh SC didn’t rule that the arrest was proper, only the search, so how did they trample Virginia’s rule?
They could always do that. This ruling didn’t change that.
This ruling said that the fact that he was unlawfully arrested did not invalidate the search or the evidence found in the search.
It didn’t even say the arrest was legal.
Moral of the story: If a person is a suspected druggie, then the suspected druggie should not drive while his/her license is suspended while in possession of the drugs that the police already suspected him/her to be in possession of. It is a sure fire way for the druggie to have his/her day ruined by an aggressive LEO.
By the way, here in Illinois if you get caught driving while you license and/or vehicle registration is suspended or revoked it is a jailable offense ranging from a Class A Misdemeanor to a Class 4 Felony depending on the cicrumstances.
The check and balance to this situation is civil litigation and in some states the criminal code. Simply put, most states have some statute or common law that exists to address the false arrests of citizens through civil and even criminal measures. In the case cited in the article, the arrest wasn’t really false, just improper...after all the guy was committing a crime - a noncustodial one to be sure, but a crime none the less. Certain consequences should be directed towrds the arresting officers, such as offical misconduct or unlawful restraint for the improper arrest, but the fact that the SCOTUS is pointing out is the guy did commit a crime he was not supposed to commit...having done so his constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and sezures was significantly erored due to his own actions.
It seems like the bigger problem here is that some LEO’s do not know the limits of their power. The story basically glosses over the fact that an officer arrested someone who should have only been issued a citation. Isn’t that kidnapping???
Police arrest the wrong person all the time for many reasons. The person they arrest often turns out to be the wrong guy.
Just because it turns out that you aren’t the guy they were looking for, it doesn’t mean you get a pass on the crack cocaine in your pocket, does it?
You have a very good point
You sound to me like you are wide awake with your eyes closed. .
“What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
Mine too, but be careful around here, there are those here too timid to be Patriots when it comes to defending their country against their government.
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