Word: warrantize
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When Ferraro speaks, then, of a pre-20th century rollback, she is on the mark--literally. The decision by the nation's highest court effectively gives judges--who make the decision to give out warrants--and police officers--who carry them out--free reign to search you or your person at the slightest provocation. As one dissenting justice stated, this move threatens to undermine the entire warrant process because it does not force police or magistrates to prove there is just cause for a search...
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 A judge had issued the warrant, even though it was based on outdated information provided by an informant of uncertain reliability.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...
...police lie in seeking the warrant, or if the judge granting the warrant is not impartial, the court ruled, evidence in such cases may still be suppressed. But by and large, last week's decision means that if police officers get a warrant, defense attorneys will be unable to persuade trial judges to block the use of the evidence gathered with it. The ruling did not address the question of whether this good-faith exception would apply when police act without a warrant, but the court may look at that issue soon. Dissenter William Brennan thought the majority...