Thursday, June 15, 2006
What is the world coming to?
Two former prosecutors get busted for drug possession in Minnesota and the judge is so sympathetic he feels their humiliation constitutes adequate punishment. Oh you poor rich white things!! You don't deserve to do time or to have this show up on your record later--you ain't from the ghetto, and you ain't no amigo, if you catch my drift.
Read full story.
That same day, the U.S. Supreme Court renders a decision in a drug case which further strips 4th Amendment rights. Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion, is too worried about "the guilty defendants who go free when otherwise valid evidence is thrown out of court. He concluded that that 'social cost' is too high in relation to whatever additional privacy protection homeowners get from the 'knock and announce' rule."
What makes this coincidence so ironic (for me at least)? The judge in the Minnesota case "had thrown out the case in May 2005, saying that the information police had from an informant, an eight-time felon facing numerous potential felony charges, was insufficient to support the search warrant that uncovered evidence of cocaine use" in the defendants' home. (Oh, sure, when it comes to good middle-class people we care about the 4th Amendment and the exclusionary rule.) I know I'm comparing a local decision with a U.S. Supreme Court one, but humor me as I quote Scalia: "Resort to the massive remedy of suppression of evidence of guilt is unjustified."
No wonder the rest of the Western democratic world thinks we're a little nuts every time they look at our justice system.
Read full story.
That same day, the U.S. Supreme Court renders a decision in a drug case which further strips 4th Amendment rights. Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion, is too worried about "the guilty defendants who go free when otherwise valid evidence is thrown out of court. He concluded that that 'social cost' is too high in relation to whatever additional privacy protection homeowners get from the 'knock and announce' rule."
What makes this coincidence so ironic (for me at least)? The judge in the Minnesota case "had thrown out the case in May 2005, saying that the information police had from an informant, an eight-time felon facing numerous potential felony charges, was insufficient to support the search warrant that uncovered evidence of cocaine use" in the defendants' home. (Oh, sure, when it comes to good middle-class people we care about the 4th Amendment and the exclusionary rule.) I know I'm comparing a local decision with a U.S. Supreme Court one, but humor me as I quote Scalia: "Resort to the massive remedy of suppression of evidence of guilt is unjustified."
No wonder the rest of the Western democratic world thinks we're a little nuts every time they look at our justice system.
