Supreme Court reverses precedent
BY DAVID ASHENFELTER and CECIL ANGEL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
June 16, 2006
In a major ruling based on a Detroit drug case, the U.S. Supreme Court said Thursday that evidence seized under a search warrant can be used in court even when police fail to announce themselves or don't give residents enough time to answer the door.
The 5-4 decision casts into doubt a 90-year-old legal precedent protecting homeowners whether they are law-abiding or not, and marks a shift resulting from President George W. Bush's most recent appointment to the high court.
Although the court majority said police still may face potential civil lawsuits for injuring people or damaging property during searches, criminal lawyers predicted wholesale violations in carrying out search warrants. Law enforcement officials, however, said police would continue to operate within the law.
The so-called knock-and-announce rule is an ancient common law principle that police must announce their presence and allow residents enough time to answer the door.
The high court's shift resulted from the retirement of moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who had expressed concerns about possible police abuses when the case first was argued in January.
The case was reargued in May after Bush nominee Samuel Alito replaced O'Connor.
Alito sided Thursday with Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote for the majority.
OBM: Let me get this striate....1. We can be stopped in our cars for any police made up reason. 2. Police can come into our homes without knocking or announcing who they are,. 3. In New Orleans after Katrina they took away peoples right to bare arms. 4. Schcool children are being forced into school lockdowns for security reasons and being held hostage from their own parents. 5. If you have video tape evidence of the police breaking the law (Rodney King & too many others)..The police still walk. 6. The NSA is & has been spying on domestic phone calls & getting phone records from phone companies. 7. The government is attaining internet records from ISP's. 8. Companies are being allowed to escape contracts with employees and pressure people into working for less pay and little or no benefits...all the while most big companies are posting record profits. 9. At the same time greedy medical & insurance companies are driving the cost of healthcare into outer space while most Americans either can't afford it or don't have it. 10. American jobs are allowed to move overseas so the profitable companies can stuff more money into there pockets by paying slave wages to people in other parts of the world while average Americans are left with barely-above-minimum-wage-jobs to support there families on. 11. People are being lied to & told that crime is up because of jail over crowding...in stead of that fact that Americans have less money to live on now than years past. 12. Hispanic immigrants are being arrested & deported after American companies treat them like slaves...while the companies & people who hired them are not. American citizens are being striate Robbed and having all of these freedoms and privacy intrusions, meanwhile Bush, Haliburton, Enron & many others, and 9-11 are not fairly and truthfully investigated. How is it that everyone is being secretly and/or truthfully investigated but our president , government, and companies? Someone please tell me this is out of some comic book or something. Is any body paying attention? What the H*ll is going on??? WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!!!
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
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