Word: warranting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Although the opinion was less sweeping than some had predicted, the court held 6 to 3 that when judges issue search warrants that are later ruled defective, the evidence gathered by police may still be used at trial in most cases. In 1981 Alberto Leon was one of several people indicted on drug-conspiracy charges in California after police searches of their homes and cars had turned up a large quantity of drugs. A judge had issued the warrant, even though it was based on outdated information provided by an informant of uncertain reliability. Two federal courts later threw...
...second case before the court was the classic kind of legal horror story that leads critics to rail against the consequences of the exclusionary rule: a Boston detective, investigating a woman's brutal murder, had good reason to suspect her boyfriend, Osborne Sheppard. Unable to find the proper warrant form, the officer unsuccessfully tried to alter a form normally used in drug cases. A judge okayed the warrant, and Sheppard was convicted. But because of this technical imperfection, Massachusetts highest court declared the search illegal and threw out the incriminating evidence, including bloody clothing, that had been found...
...Supreme Court accepted the lower courts' determinations that both warrants were defective, but found that the police had acted in the good-faith belief that the searches they made were lawful. Justice Byron White argued that the principal justification for the exclusionary rule was to deter police misconduct. But when police have obtained what they reasonably think is a valid warrant, "there is no police illegality and thus nothing to deter," wrote White. "Penalizing the officer for the magistrate's error, rather than his own, cannot logically contribute to the deterrence of Fourth Amendment violations...
...become a party guru with his gospel of gee-whiz goodness, has no record to run on. His year and a half in Albany has been a litany of failure, and his obsession with the 21-year-old minimum drinking age as the family issue is too silly to warrant any serious discussion...
...person force to speed the entry of foreign visitors and check for weapons. To expedite the investigation of suspected terrorists, U.S. Attorney Robert Bonner has assembled a round-the-clock team of eight federal magistrates especially for the Olympics. These officials will be able to issue instant search warrants and authorize wiretaps. They will have tape recorders at home so that assistant U.S. attorneys who are busy at distant locations or stuck in traffic can call in and get the rarely used telephonic search warrant a temporary authorization that will hold up in court until the proper paperwork...