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  • From: bobf <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] SCOTUS scuttle rights
  • Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:45:32 -0800 (PST)

I do not understand this ruling. By the way, if the topic of Supreme Court
rulings on individual liberties doesn not interest you, please feel free to
delete, now. I will not try to explain other than to say it weas an invalid
warrant -- a mistake-- but SCOTUS says the evidence found during the illegal
raid is now admissable. Expect many more 'mistakes' from the armed agents of
the state. I do not understand why 'strict Constitutionalists' like Scalia
and Thomas would rule with the affirmative in this decision. This is one of
the worst SCOTUS rulings I can remember. This is just terrible. PFFFT.
From today's NYT.........

----------------------------------------------------------------------


Supreme Court Says Evidence Is Valid Despite Police Error

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 14, 2009
Filed at 11:35 a.m. ET


Justices Turn to Rights of Defendants (January 14, 2009)
Text of the Opinion: Herring v. United States (pdf)WASHINGTON (AP) -- The
Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that evidence found after an arrest based on
incorrect information from police files may be used against a criminal
suspect.

In a 5-4 split, the court upheld the conviction of an Alabama man on federal
drug and gun charges.

Bennie Dean Herring was arrested on what the Coffee County, Ala., sheriff's
department thought was a valid warrant from a neighboring county. It turned
out that the warrant for Herring's arrest had been recalled five months
earlier.

Herring argued that police negligence should automatically lead to the
suppression of evidence found after an unjustified arrest.

But Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said the evidence may
be used ''when police mistakes are the result of negligence such as that
described here, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of
constitutional requirements.''

Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas
sided with Roberts.

In a dissent for the other four justices, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said
the ruling ''leaves Herring, and others like him, with no remedy for
violations of their constitutional rights.''

Ginsburg said accurate police record-keeping is of paramount importance,
particularly with the widespread use of electronic databases. Justices
Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens also dissented.

Herring was arrested after a neighboring Dale County sheriff's employee found
a computer entry noting that Herring was wanted for failing to appear in
court on a felony charge. The sheriff's computer database had not been
updated to reflect the recall of the warrant for Herring's arrest.

Meanwhile, in a search after Herring's arrest, Coffee County deputies found
methamphetamine in Herring's pockets and an unloaded gun under the front seat
of his truck.

Some courts have ruled that as a deterrent to police misconduct, the fruits
of a similar search may be excluded from evidence.

But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said that suppressing
evidence in Herring's case would be unlikely to deter sloppy record keeping.

The case is Herring v. U.S., 07-513.

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  • [Homestead] SCOTUS scuttle rights, bobf, 01/14/2009

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