Word: scalia
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...Scalia's comments during oral argument in a case earlier this year on whether law enforcement could impound a home during the time it took to get a search warrant make his opinion in the most recent case, Kyllo v. U.S., less surprising. "There is considerable interest on the part of an individual in going into his own home," he said. "We're going to go crazy trying to balance these things all the time." And also "I'm concerned about complicating the criminal law more than necessary...I'm not sure human beings are capable of figuring...
...device, the cops were able to get a search warrant, go into Kyllo's home and find that he was growing about 100 marijuana plants in a room above the garage, under high-intensity lamps. In previous decisions dealing with this technology, courts have been all over the map. Scalia put a stop to that...
...Supreme Court's precedents "draw a firm line at the entrance to the house," said Scalia, and it's irrelevant whether ever-evolving technology permits law enforcement to gather evidence without entering the premises. If, without the technology, the cops would have had to enter the house to gather the evidence needed - bingo, they needed a search warrant, said the justice, harkening back to the original meaning of the Fourth Amendment and common law in a perfect Scalia moment. His aim: to preserve the degree of privacy that was expected at the time the Fourth Amendment was written...
...worth noting, in case anyone thought Scalia was applying for charter membership in the new, anti-Federalist Society group being started up by Georgetown University law professor Peter Rubin and a few others, that Scalia was in the dissent in the first two cases and in the majority in the third. So though he is sometimes jokingly known as "Let 'Em Go Nino" for certain rulings he's made in the criminal area, the emphasis is on "jokingly." In a handful of cases - most notably last year's Apprendi v. New Jersey, in which he sided with the majority...
...Kyllo case, Anthony Kennedy's stance may have been as surprising as Scalia's (and of course that of John Paul Stevens, who bought the government's line). In a 1998 case, Minnesota v. Carter, he wrote that "Security of the home must be guarded by the law in a world where privacy is diminished by enhanced surveillance and sophisticated communications systems." But guess how he ruled this week? With Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor and William Rehnquist - and for law enforcement's newfangled evidence-gathering gizmos...