Supreme Court in another attack on the 4th Amendment

In a 5-3 decision in Utah v. Strieff.

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that evidence found by police officers after illegal stops may be used in court if the officers conducted their searches after learning that the defendants had outstanding arrest warrants. – New York Times […]

The case, Utah v. Strieff, No. 14-1373, arose from police surveillance of a house in South Salt Lake based on an anonymous tip of “narcotics activity” there. A police officer, Douglas Fackrell, stopped Edward Strieff after he had left the house based on what the state later conceded were insufficient grounds, making the stop unlawful.

Officer Fackrell then ran a check and discovered a warrant for a minor traffic violation. He arrested Mr. Strieff, searched him and found a baggie containing methamphetamines and drug paraphernalia. The question for the justices was whether the drugs must be suppressed given the unlawful stop or whether they could be used as evidence given the arrest warrant.

“Officer Fackrell was at most negligent,” Justice Thomas wrote, adding that “there is no evidence that Officer Fackrell’s illegal stop reflected flagrantly unlawful police misconduct.”

The only good news – a blistering dissent by Sonia Sotomayor.

Read Sonia Sotomayor’s Atomic Bomb of a Dissent Slamming Racial Profiling and Mass Imprisonment

“This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants—even if you are doing nothing wrong,” Sotomayor writes, in a dissent joined in part by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “If the officer discovers a warrant for a fine you forgot to pay, courts will now excuse his illegal stop and will admit into evidence anything he happens to find by searching you after arresting you on the warrant.” […]

“By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged.”

“We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by police are “isolated.” They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths, civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere. They are the ones who recognize that unlawful police stops corrode all our civil liberties and threaten all our lives. Until their voices matter too, our justice system will continue to be anything but.”

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32 Responses to Supreme Court in another attack on the 4th Amendment

  1. We have got to start recognizing that the Supreme Court’s only job should be to ensure compliance and adherence to the constitution.

    The job of the Supreme Court should not be to re-write the Constitution.

    At about the point we decided that the job of the Supreme’s was to update things is about the time where we lost our government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

    Congress should intervene in this one fast. Or we the people must.

    • Justice Thomas: the whole line of “commerce clause” cases granted too much power to the federal government
      http://www.theweedblog.com/supreme-court-opens-door-for-more-lawless-police-searches/

      • Spirit Wave says:

        As long as vague language is allowed in law (and too many “citizens” could not care less about law), there will be opportunities for abusive judicial interpretation (and harshly weedy growth via legal precedence).

        The Commerce Clause epitomizes that problem, and millions (if not billions) of non-violent (i.e. sanely innocent) drug users (and their loved ones) have suffered, despite the unalienable right to liberty (and amendment nine clearly judicially enforcing that right).

        The Commerce Clause is also the basis for most (if not all) “liberalism” and “progressivism” involving deep government interference in economic affairs, so do not expect traditional leftists to help close this hideous loophole.

        Our nation sadly cannot reconcile the conflict between rights and powers in a purely logical (so fair, so just) way.

        For example, compare the ninth amendment (a catchall amendment involving rights) with the tenth amendment (a catchall amendment involving powers).

        The (totally ignored) fact is a right without power is not really a right.

        The Commerce Clause vaguely grants the power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes”.

        Our Supreme Court has blatantly (i.e. in the public record) illegally redefined that clause to regulate any activity having a substantial effect on commerce.

        That illegality has even been monstrously judicially stretched to ban (not regulate) the mere possession of a plant.

        What nobody else is talking about is the fact that your thought activity (which literally determines all of your buying and selling decisions) always has a substantial effect on commerce — and technology is rapidly advancing that allows for thought control.

        Based upon that judicial illegality that has been entrenched for several decades and strongly counting (starting from the New Deal), Congress has authority to regulate your thoughts in the “land of the free”.

        Our nation is rampantly unlawful and out of control — largely due to rampant hypocrisy leveraged as a weapon to advance selfish agendas “to protect the children”.

        According to our national declaration, our nation was violently established against law abuse (logically the worst form of abuse due to its mainly broad scope of destruction).

        Instead of righteously building our nation upon primarily opposing law abuse, our nation embraces law abuse and disguises it as justice.

        The only rational way to end the cycle of oppression via abusive law is objective language (i.e. pure certainty) in law, which is why I call myself a scientific constitutionalist — and why I wrote (and continue refining) my Liberty Shield informational roots (libertyshield.us) to bring reality to this fundamental area of society.

        Liberty Shield fully logically unites the positive intentions of genuine liberals/progressives, American (not pre-American) conservatives, and libertarians.

        Liberty Shield can either be leveraged to create an actual justice system (not the agenda system in place now) to save our nation, or it forms the basis for the next wave of revolutionaries refusing to allow reason abusers and thugs to (again) selfishly run society into ruin.

  2. jean valjean says:

    ot

    “Drug dealers are deliberately making ‘child-friendly’ ecstasy pills shaped like teddy bears or Disney characters to attract younger users, a government adviser has warned.”

    It’s not the teddy bears that kill people, it’s prohibition.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/drug-dealers-are-making-child-friendly-teddy-pills-warns-government-adviser-a7093041.html

  3. Servetus says:

    If stopping the motorist was illegal, then the motorist should have sued the Utah police for that offense. Federal court awards are usually in the $150,000 range.

    If an illegal act committed by a cop is exonerated by the contraband found or planted in a search afterward, then it can be said the ends justifies the means, and that is not the law, despite what certain Supremes say.

    As long as officers don’t have access to the inside of a vehicle, they can’t plant anything inside. A civilian merely has to be proximate to illicit drugs to be found guilty of possession. Given a lot of drugs, it’s possession with intent to sell. Planting drugs was a technique used by cops to harass black motorists in the 50s to discourage them from moving into white neighborhoods. In the 70s, planted drugs were a favorite tactic for cops targeting someone who was driving hippie. These kinds of events are essentially hard-to-detect hate crimes committed by the police, not drug arrests.

    Lacking a Congressional remedy until the victim count is huge enough, one defense left to motorists is a technical one, to arm themselves with electronic gear, such as dashboard cameras and GPUs to record any police encounters, as well as radar and laser detectors for speed traps. It cannot be assumed that the police cameras will be operational during the encounter, as they can be non-functioning, or simply turned off. Hidden cameras in a home or business could detect, or possibly discourage, sneak-and-peek warrants for drugs.

    Defeating a 21st century police state will be difficult, but not impossible.

  4. Jenkem Rehab Counselor says:

    The same SCOTUS that ruled corporations are persons?
    Was Shrub appointee Roberts instructed to rule the way corporate pimps instructed or the blackmail photos will be made public?
    Are we still the indispensable number 1 super duper power or just as corrupt as some third rate South American banana republic?

  5. Servetus says:

    An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates his duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. – Thomas Paine (1737-1809), Dissertation on First Principles of Government

  6. Papers Please Comrade says:

    “The whole fabric of society will go to wrack if we really lay hands of reform on our rotten institutions. From top to bottom the whole system is a fraud, all of us know it, laborers and capitalists alike, and all of us are consenting parties to it.” — Henry Adams, American historian, 1838–1918

  7. Pingback: Law? | Spirit Wave Journal

  8. Servetus says:

    New research shows psychological harm occurring in childhood is correlated to drug and alcohol dependencies:

    Toronto — 22-JUN-2016 — Adults who have drug or alcohol dependency have experienced very high rates of early adversities, according to a new study published by University of Toronto researchers. One in five drug dependent Canadian adults and one in six alcohol dependent adults were survivors of childhood sexual abuse. This compares to one in 19 in the general Canadian population. More than one half of substance abusers had been physically abused in childhood compared to one-quarter of those who were not addicted. After accounting for mental illness, poverty and social support, both sexual and physical abuse were associated with twice the odds of drug dependence.

    AAAS Press Release: Childhood abuse and chronic parental domestic violence linked to later addictions

  9. Servetus says:

    New research published in a newly formed scientific journal, Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, indicates that children and adults medicating with CBD should not take it orally because it changes to THC in contact with stomach acids:

    April 8, 2016 — Introduction: …“orally administered cannabidiol (CBD) showed a relatively high incidence of somnolence in a pediatric population. Previous work has suggested that when CBD is exposed to an acidic environment, it degrades to Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other psychoactive cannabinoids. To gain a better understanding of quantitative exposure, we completed an in vitro study by evaluating the formation of psychoactive cannabinoids when CBD is exposed to simulated gastric fluid (SGF).”[…]

    Results: CBD in SGF with 1% SDS was degraded about 85% after 60 min and more than 98% at 120 min. The degradation followed first-order kinetics at a rate constant of −0.031 min−1 (R2=0.9933). The major products formed were Δ9-THC and Δ8-THC with less significant levels of other related cannabinoids. CBD in physiological buffer performed as a control did not convert to THC. Confirmation of THC formation was demonstrated by comparison of mass spectral analysis, mass identification, and retention time of Δ9-THC and Δ8-THC in the SGF samples against authentic reference standards.
    Source (no paywall): Identification of Psychoactive Degradants of Cannabidiol in Simulated Gastric and Physiological Fluid

    AAAS Press Release: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/mali-doc062116.php

    This is important information for anyone undergoing CBD therapy for epilepsy. A vaporized ingestion method or transdermal patch is needed, or the full effects of CBD will be limited, and drowsiness may occur.

    That a new science journal is spearheading publication of useful and accurate cannabis medical research is a definite improvement over the pseudoscience/propaganda funded by the NIDA.

  10. Servetus says:

    Here is a new bit of research that should interest Kevin Sabet as well as Mel and Betty Sembler:

    BOSTON Medical Center — 21-JUN-2016 –In an analysis recently published in BMJ, which coincided with the UN High Level Meeting on HIV in New York, Boston Medical Center (BMC) clinician researchers assessed current global evidence and found that mandatory treatment for people with substance use disorders is not effective in reducing their drug use. In addition, mandatory treatment, which is defined as treatment ordered, motivated or supervised under the criminal justice system, done without a patient’s informed consent violates their human rights and does more harm than benefit to the patient.

    AAAS Press Release: Study: Mandatory treatment not effective at reducing drug use, violates human rights

    I’m guessing Sabet and the Semblers will express their usual denial over these results, and that it will have no effect on stemming their drug rehab agenda.

  11. The Hall of Archives says:

    “Whether the mask is labeled Fascism, Democracy, or Dictatorship of the Proletariat, our great adversary remains the Apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier or the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brother’s enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this Apparatus, and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.” – Simone Weil

  12. KillerWeed says:

    It looks like his heart conked out while making a delivery:

    Officers found 31-year-old Johnny Taylor of Bridgeport, Connecticut, dead and kneeling on the ground with his head on the step of the van’s side door. Police say his body showed no signs of trauma and that it appears he died of natural causes.

    Police say that once Taylor’s body was removed, officers found bags of marijuana inside a box in the van and saw similar boxes in the truck.

    http://tinyurl.com/heavyKillerWeed

  13. Pingback: Supreme Court in another attack on the 4th Amendment - YaHooka Forums

  14. Servetus says:

    Annie Jacobsen’s book Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America, provides information on the origins of MK-Ultra, beginning under the directorship of two high ranking Nazi scientists, SS Brigadeführer Dr. Walter Shreiber, and Dr. Kurt Blome, both men brought into the United States and immediately employed in U.S. chemical warfare research and development:

    Operation Bluebird interrogation program at Camp King expanded to include “the use of drugs and chemicals in unconventional interrogation.”…Bluebird was rechristened Artichoke…the goal…was “modifying behavior through covert means.” According to Richard Helms—the future director of the CIA—using drugs was a means to that end. “We felt that it was our responsibility not to lag behind the Russians or the Chinese in this field, and the only way to find out what the risks were was to test things such as LSD and other drugs that could be used to control human behavior.[…]

    “The Army, and Navy were both looking for truth drugs while the prime concern of the Air Force was interrogation techniques used on downed pilots.”[…]

    If a downed U.S. pilot or soldier was rescued by the Russians, that person would almost certainly be subjected to unconventional interrogation techniques, according to the CIA.[…]

    CIA believed … the Soviets purchased a large quantity of LSD-25 from the Sandoz company … sufficient for 50-million doses…A later analysis of the information determined that the CIA analyst working on the report made a decimal point error while performing dosage calculations. The Soviets had in fact purchased enough LSD from Sandoz for a few thousand tests—a far cry from fifty million.—Operation Paperclip by Annie Jacobsen, (2015), pp 364-5.

    What is it with state and local drug agents, the CIA, and DEA/ONDCP, when it comes to simple math? Could a math competency test prior to employment at the agencies eliminate these kinds of problems in the future? A math counsel to government employees could save trillions of dollars wasted on botched schemes to repress American citizens.

  15. DdC says:

    And here we come to the vital distinction between the advocacy of temperance and the advocacy of prohibition. Temperance and self-control are convertible terms. Prohibition, or that which it implies, is the direct negation of the term self-control. In order to save the small percentage of men who are too weak to resist their animal desires, it aims to put chains on every man, the weak and the strong alike. And if this is proper in one respect, why not in all respects? Yet, what would one think of a proposition to keep all men locked up because a certain number have a propensity to steal?
    Felix Mendelsohn, 1915

  16. Is DEA a bad guy in opioid addiction fight? By Joe Davidson at WP https://t.co/Kye1m8Bctk

    Yes.

  17. Colour Haze says:

    When you tear out a man’s tongue,
    you are not proving him a liar, you’re
    only telling the world that you fear
    what he might say.

    #freeamosyee

    Fuck the American left. Fuck Islam.

    #freeamosyee

    #freeamosyee

    #freeamosyee

    • Take'imDown! says:

      Pete, please remove this dangerously deluded fanatic!

      • Pete says:

        I’ll consider it, but quite frankly, I don’t even know what he’s talking about.

        • Duncan20903 says:

          .
          .

          Don’t feel bad Pete, neither do I.

          It’s been a long time since I’ve flagged a post from a prohibitionist. Leaving those posts up does more to discredit them than I could ever do. Of course it’s been a long, long time since the last sycophant of prohibition with a triple digit IQ left the building. That might have something to do with it.

        • jean valjean says:

          I’d say he had Tourette’s, but that would be offensive to tickers.

  18. Acrimony says:

    #freeamosyee

  19. allan says:

    My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard – http://goo.gl/5bJ5NL

  20. How Ronald Reagan’s drug war fueled Americans’ addiction to racist ideas
    http://tinyurl.com/zvrzfk2

  21. DdC says:

    To sin by silence
    when we should protest
    makes cowards out of men.
    — Ella Wheeler Wilcox

    Exclusive: NFL players speak out on marijuana policy

    The purpose of education
    is to make the choices clear to people,
    not to make the choices for people.
    — Peter McWilliams,
    Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do

    Film Clip:
    ‘Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words’
    Wall Street Journal

  22. Frank W. says:

    Is the brexit going to affect UK drug law reform efforts? besides the pound going down down down? I checked out the Release site in the link column here but it was more general info.

    • jean valjean says:

      No, they’d need to exit the real stranglehold on Britain, US drug policy i.e. the Single Convention for that.

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