Speaking of Search & Seizure...Follow

The story, as per the Supreme Court ruling (PDF), goes as follows: Police were called to investigate a loud party at about 3:00am. Upon arriving, they spoted several underage teens drinking in the backyard and approached them. While in the backyard the police saw, through the windows and screen door, a fight between four adults and a younger person. The adults seemed to be trying to restrain the younger and the younger was fighting back, including hitting one adult in the face and causing the adult to spit blood. The police announced their presence at the door but were unnoticed at which time they entered, announced themselves again, broke up the melee and arrested several people, charging them with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, disorderly conduct, and intoxication.

Those arrested claimed that the evidence used in their arrest was inadmissible because the police did not have a warrant to enter and thusly violated their 4th Amendment protections. They further state that it was unreasonable to invoke the idea of "emergency protections" for the injured party as none were seriously threatened. This wasn't a case of the police hearing gunshots or a woman screaming for help, it was some guy spitting out some blood as he and several others restrained the other party. Furthermore, the police did not even lend emergency medical care to the one injured party.

The Supreme Court decided that they were not buying this.John Stevens makes an interesting point that the Utah Constitution allows for broader protections against search & seizure than the United States Constitution and that the defendants chose the wrong hook to hang their hats on when they decided to argue the case using the 4th Amendment as their basis.

Edited to add a PDF warning to the link

Edited, Wed May 24 10:16:28 2006 by Jophiel

Uh-huh. Except that allowable exceptions to the warrant requirement to date allow the police to enter a private building in order to render emergency medical aid, or to prevent serious injury or death. Specifically that.

This ruling extends that provision exponentially and without cause - since the police did NOT render medical aid to any injured party; nor did they have reason to believe anyone was in serious danger.

Based on interviewing the drunk teenagers out in the yard, they should have picked them up and based any further arrests off of the contributing to delinquency charges that most likely applied.

Weird. When you install a bunch of justices who think privacy isn't a right and has been taken too far, you get rulings like this one.

I'm shocked. Shocked I say.

But they'll save us from the attacks on Christmas!

Oh absolutely. Probably by ruling that the Christmass Police are well within their rights to search any house without a Nativity Scene on it's lawn.

I rated down on reply in this thread, and it was not Kakar.

Anyone wanna take a guess who it was

The SCOTUS has upheld, many times, that there is indeed a reasonable expectation of privacy within a private home. This is in contrast, in varying degrees, to outbuildings, cars, and private property.

Well, Roberts and crew seem to think so. I disagree, and believe that this weakens the rights protected by the Amendment.

It's interesting that as you pointed out, Utah's law is more strict, in that the court has to weigh the motive of the officers. Were they there to save a life? Or were they there to make arrests? Were they acting as enforcers, or caretakers? As the facts bore out in the case, no medical care was given or needed, and the officers were there primarily to enforce.

I get the feeling that opponents of the ruling have this idea that this will allow officers to walk up and peek into window after window, looking for something to arrest on.



Quite honestly, the whole "Can't use evidence w/o a warrent" thing is broken. In my ittle head, it seems like the general idea for that amendment was "let's prevent police/guberment corruption from affecting innocent people!", which is good and all, but the side effect is that the guilty get away with much more than they would otherwise, because of an unchecked abuse of rights.

According to the historical portion of that site, it has wavered back and forth on the subject since its inception. I suppose it will continue to do so, as the phrasing of the amendment leaves it open for dual, conflicting interpretations.

Sorry but I hate hypocrites.

What business is it of the government how much money you make? They go into the private property of employers, force them to turn over information about you, including how much money you are being paid, and take money from your paycheck.

Don't lie and say you don't fully support this total invasion of privacy, and violent forcible confiscation of the wealth of citizens.

Your outcry about cases involving the 4th Amendment loses genuine conviction. In fact, you support and encourage quite the opposite of "protecting individuals against the state". What goes around comes around. And guess what? You have absolutely no philosophical, ethical, or moral basis, upon which to object.

It's quite clear. Though I'm not surprised you are unable to answer.

Business/place of employment = private property
Government is authorized to snoop and roam on that private porperty to ascertain how much money the citizens owning the business make and how much the citizens being employed by the business make.

If the State can go onto private property and force this information to be turned over to them, there is no privacy.

On top of that, part of private citizens paychecks is taken directly by the State before they even cash it. Some right to privacy... Some right to private property ...

So what's the difference if the police go when and where they want for no other reason than "because they feel like it"? Upon which grounds would you object? That's right, you have no grounds upon which to object. So keep playing dumb, keep losing elections, and keep avoiding answering serious charges.

My head hurts.

On top of that, part of private citizens paychecks is taken directly by the State before they even cash it.

Nah just peasents. No one takes any money from my paychecks.