A post by Pat
Since the Mapp v Ohio Supreme Court ruling in 1961 drug dealers, rapists, murderers and criminals of every variety have gone free because a judge deemed evidence was obtained by an unconstitutional search and seizure. The evidence would be inadmissible for even a slight technical violation by the police. The idea was to make the penalty for police misconduct so severe procedures would be fastidiously followed. All too often, a small technicality resulted in the worst scum getting released and put back out on the street. It was better to let 100 guilty go free than one innocent man suffer as William Douglas said. How many innocent suffered from one guilty going free wasn’t taken into consideration.
At last the Supreme Court has reintroduced common sense to admissibility of evidence. In a 5-4 ruling the Court says evidence is valid despite some police errors. The case was about an arrest made based on a mistake over a warrant. Sheriffs in Coffee County, Alabama arrested Bennie Dean Herring on a warrant that had been recalled five months earlier. Computers had not been updated. Drugs and an unloaded gun were found on Herring at the time of his arrest.
Although Herring’s Constitutional rights were violated, Justices Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Kennedy and Scalia concluded the evidence was still admissible. Justice Ginsburg said it was important for police to keep their records up to date. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeal had decided suppressing evidence under these circumstances was unlikely to improve police record keeping.
Court says evidence is valid despite police error
The Supreme Court said Wednesday that evidence obtained after illegal searches or arrests based on simple police mistakes may be used to prosecute criminal defendants.
The justices split 5-4 along ideological lines to apply new limits to the court’s so-called exclusionary rule, which generally requires evidence to be suppressed if it results from a violation of a suspect’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches or seizure.
Coffee County, Ala., sheriff’s deputies found amphetamines in Herring’s pockets and an unloaded gun in his truck when they conducted a search following his arrest. It turned out that the warrant from neighboring Dale County had been recalled five months earlier, but the county sheriff’s computers had not been updated.
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.”
I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of this. There will be a lot of arguing about what is reckless disregard. The dissenting four should find consolation in the fact that the Court is following the example of other countries on this matter. The United States was the only country to take the position that police misconduct, slight or major, must automatically result in the suppression of physical evidence.
As Justice Cardoza said, the criminal should not go free because the constable blunders.
Wow, good news for a change. I remember having a knock down fight with someone (who was a law student at the time) about this issue. My plea was “suspend the cop, fire the cop, arrest the cop, taze the cop!!!, but please don’t let the murderer go free because the cop messed up. The two issues have nothing to do with eachother.”
Thank God Pres. Bush appointed John Roberts and made him chief. His predecessor, Rehnquist, was always my favorite (despite that weird robe thing) because he thought all of this was BS. Johnny’s doin’ him proud.
I have to agree – this is a terrific decision. And, I have to agree, the first time I have seen good news in awhile!
Soooo… All those cases where the guilty was allowed to walk, because of a simple mistake, could now be re-opened, eh?
Yes, they could only use the supressed evidence in the new trial, I believe. But, it might just be enough.
What a sad, sad day for the ACLU, democrat anarchists, and the other mutations of the American communist movement from the 1930s. If this keeps up, Americans may someday be allowed to defend life and property without threat of prison or financial ruin.
I agree, this is a welcome decision.
This is an extension of the “harmless error” rule in the Federal Criminal courts. That rule held that an error by the Court or the Government at trial was not cause for reversal if it was “harmless” that is was not intentional and would not otherwise predjudice the outcome of the trial. From the text it appears that this is such an error.
Hopefully it will be applied on a case by case basis depending on the circumstances invloved. It does involve getting into the heads of the officials involved at the time. This case is very straightforward though.