This decision is worse than I thought and worse than the media is reporting. You can read the decision for yourself

The issue before the court was whether the evidence discovered during the illegal search subsquent to the no-knock entry was admissible, or whether it must be excluded. I am not making that up. The State of Michigan conceeded that the search was illegal and violated the 4th amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

The majority held that the evidence obtained in the illegal search should not be excluded merely because the entry was illegal. The court held that the remedy sought for the constitutional violation - exclusion of the evidence - was too extreme, and that other, loess socially costly remedies were available, such as a lawsuit against the city for civil rights violations.

This is clearly a brave new world of jurisprudence. Yup, you have a 4th amendment right against unlawful search and seizure. Yup, the state violated your rights - and freely admits that fact. Sorry, the state can use the evidence obtained during the illegal search against you in a criminal trial. Good luck in civil court suing for the violation of your civil rights. We, the Supreme Court of the United States, have now decided that you can have Constitutional rights, but we are not going to give you a remedy. This is truly freightening.

Justice Kennedy is a man that I have studied under and have great respect for (despite a really stupid ruling last year in which he looked to world opinion to guide a decision that ultimately determined that it is unconstutional to execute people for crimes that they committed as juveniles, which is asinine because world opinion is utterly irrelevant to interpretation of the US Constitution). However, he is caught in this case sitting on the fence getting splinters in his ass. I think he is losing it. If Justice O'Conner was still on the bench, the court would have got this decision right. 6-3.

So thats it campers. You have Constitutionally protected rights. Just don't come crawling to the court when you want them vindicated.

Kowboy -

The dissent in the opinion points out that in the particular case at bar, there was in fact justification present to enter under no-knock conditions. The prosecutor never argued it. This case was hand picked from the beginning to challenge the exclusionary rule application to 4th Amendment violations by police officers.

I agree that the media reporting is absurd and divisive. This case is bad law.

emmasdad,

I still have not read the whole thing. But for the sake of argument I push on.

How is this different then from when the courts ruled the terry stop and frisk under reasonable suspicion or the exception of search without a warrant on vehicles as long as the officer can produce probable cause and that there is not reasonable time to obtain a warrant. Those are both 4th amendment issues were the safety of officers or the chance of loss evidence was stronger then protecting a law breaker. I would never like to see and warrant issued without probable cause but once it is established then a lawful search warrant is issued. What the 4th does is protect us from unlawful search and seizures it doesn't tell use how to execute lawful search warrants. We have Lawyers that become Judges to tell us that.

Let's hope they will be yelling police. My worry is that in Texas. where so many people have a ready gun. tthis will endanger the police. We have been having a rash of home invasions. In some, the perps pretend to be police, even wear police markings or apparel. Home invasions have become so common place that I think this should be a federal crime, like carjacking.

The police are up against heavily armed teenage gangs with no sense. They are also up against crack heads and meth users with no sense at all. The job of a policeman and the raids are far more dangerous than they were a few years back.

I'm not so sure that kicking in the door is the solution.

A little poker history. In the old days, all dice games had a lookout. Some poker games. The Texas Rangers came walking up in big hats. You better have the door open for them or they would kick it in.

ED - I was thinking about this on the way home... If I understand it correctly, the ruling wasn't that the entry didn't violate the 4th, but that the "penalty" for violating the 4th (exclusion of evidence) was too harsh, right? If that's the case, it's still pretty bad, but it doesn't quite rise to the same level of blatant Constitutional rewriting that you saw in Kelo...