Go Ahead, Make His Day

Supreme Court Justices Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito make Dirty Harry's day:

Justices Say Evidence Is Valid Despite Police Error

By DAVID STOUT    

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of an Alabama man on drug and weapons charges, emphasizing that the exclusionary rule, which generally bars prosecutors from using evidence obtained by the police through improper searches, is far from absolute.

In a 5-to-4 opinion, the court upheld the federal conviction of Bennie Dean Herring, who from the court records appears to have been very unlucky as well as felonious in his conduct. In upholding the conviction, the court’s majority came to a conclusion that will most likely please those who complain about criminals going free on “technicalities.”

Here is the opinion and earlier coverage.

TO BE FAIR:  Literalists may wonder whether Dirty Harry's conduct cold be waved off as a mere technicality.  I guess the DA would have to ask himself one question - does he feel lucky?

Comments

[Danube of Thought]

Here is the major problem I have with the Supreme Court, and it is a huge one: If you tell me the issues presented in a given case, I can tell you immdiately how the four conservatives will vote, and I can tell you immediately how the four liberals will vote. (No one can tell you how Kennedy will vote.)

I can tell you this without looking at a single statute, and without having read a single case in the past ten years. It's not supposed to work that way, but that's where we are today. Something is very wrong.

[clarice]

The opinion makes perfect. logical sense. The exclusionary rule is to dissuade LE from systematic errors in procedure or reckless disregard of citizen's rights. Here the officers found the illicit weapons on the basis of a search warrant issued on the basis of (unknown to the officers withdrawn) info on a LE database. What possible public interest would there be in excluding such evidence? Or are we in a game theory of justice?

[sbw]

DOT. Wat is it? What is wrong? Put it into words.

[bgates]

Yeah, I thought TM's first sentence was wordy. "Supreme Court Justice Kennedy makes Dirty Harry's day" conveys exactly the same amount of information.

Has it not ever been thus?

[Appalled]

DOT:

And the interesting thing is that when the Supremes weigh in on my rather boring area of expertise (which I am not going to tell you because I do not post comments about it), the Court is actually unpredictable -- with Scalia coming out as the least "business-friendly".

[Poisened Tree]

Wooo-Hooooooo!

Finally, my fruit can be used!

[Danube of Thought]

SBW, what is wrong is that the Supreme Court has simply devolved into a third policy-making branch of government.

(I have no quarrel at all with this particular holding; I'd have voted that way myself.)

[Danube of Thought]

I understand perfectly, Appalled. When presented with issues that are not politically charged, and do not raise questions of social policy, the Justices revert to their proper function, and they follow the law as they understand it.

[Neo]

I remember seeing a quote a while back from Scalia asking why judges are excluding evidence since he thought that was the job of the jury to weight the evidence, not the judge.

[BobS]

The world wonders what Judge Ito would have done with the ruling on the books.

[Thomas Collins]

I would argue, DOT, that Scalia's and Thomas's position on whether the due process clause may be used to override state court punitive damage awards, while perhaps not business friendly, is an appropriate exercise in judicial restraint (I note that my memory is that in an oil spill case, Scalia and Thomas may have veered to some extent from their opposition to limiting state court punitive damage awards).

In any event, in the case of the present SCOTUS's view of the exclusionary rule, the constable's good faith blunders may in certain instances be held not grounds to overturn a conviction. However, if for some reason Scalia, Thomas, Alito or Roberts leave the court and are replaced by Patrick, Estrich, Tribe or the like, the constable had better dot every i and cross every t!

[polynikes]

The reason DOT that you can tell how the court will vote most of the time is because you know half the court will follow the statutes as they were intended and the other half will fit the law to whatever is relevant to their personal beliefs thus only half the court sucks.

[Danube of Thought]

Not necessarily, Polynikes. Consider the DC gun ban case. That was a case of reading highly ambiguous constitutional langage--language that may well never have been intended to address the issue of an individual rights--in such a way as to confer an individual right, and thus to deprive the citizenry of the right to vote on the question. It wasn't nearly as bad as Roe v. Wade in that regard, but as in Roe v. Wade it was a case of justices making the case come out in accordance with their own preferred social policy instead of having people set such policy at the ballot box.

Incidentally, I'm delighted with the result in the gun case. But it's hard to defend it on the basis of the constitution.

[Captain Hate]

The world wonders what Judge Ito would have done with the ruling on the books.

Probably something incompetent to offset it.

[NCC]

"The world wonders what Judge Ito would have done with the ruling on the books."

Whatever Johnnie Cochrane asked him to do.

[Jane]

ouch!

[matt]

they maltreated one of the 9-11 terrorists at Gitmo and the Left called it torture. When I was a lad back in the early 1970's I attended a couple of demonstrations and was at the wrong place at he wrong time and got whacked by the cops. Never called them pigs, but I was not friendly to law enforcement either. Was that torture under the Left's definitions? How does one define the meaning of the word torture when dealing with animals? That is the real issue.

the Supremes seem to have made a common sense decision on the rules of evidence.

Now with a new regime, the lefty dems want to try Bush on war crimes. Although I don't agree with some of the Supreme Court rulings, I can live with their decisions in most cases.I pray that none of the more conservative members retire or die.

If they push Left, on the other hand, we as a country are in deep, deep trouble.

[Thomas Collins]

If the constable commits a blunder,
The crook can go back to his plunder.