"When Cops Forget"

Law Professor Glenn Reynolds, who is listed on my favorite blogs as Instanpundit has an article in the New York Post, with the title "When Cops Forget."  This is about a US Supreme Court decision (Herring vs United States) released yesterday, the 14th of January.

The quick review of the case from the article:

Admittedly, the facts in this case aren't that appealing. Bennie Dean Herring, a man with prior felony convictions, went to retrieve an impounded truck. Looking for a reason to arrest him, a police officer asked if there were any warrants outstanding. The computer showed a warrant from a neighboring county.

Herring was arrested and found to be in possession of a pistol (illegal, as he had a prior felony) and methamphetamine. Moments later, the clerk called to say that the warrant had been withdrawn, but by then the search and the arrest had been made.

According to Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, "When police mistakes leading to an unlawful search are the result of isolated negligence attenuated from the search, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements, the exclusionary rule does not apply."

Why did I think Chief Justice Roberts was a Conservative?

The "slip opinion"* is here, for those who care to read it.

In the short term this can be viewed as a good thing. Another person violating the law, and his parole, is caught.

In the long term this might not be such a good thing. If the police accident rate remains low, then things are are not so bad. But, if such "accidents" become institutionalized, then this Supreme Court ruling is a path around our Constitutional protections against the Government--and the Bill of Rights is about protecting us from the Government.

Governments can be like cute little puppies, which grow up to be ravenous, vicious animals. I am not saying that is the only path--and for over 200 years that has not been the path for our Federal Government, but that is in large part due to the vigilance of our fellow citizens, people like Professor Reynolds.

Be vigilant out there.

Regards -- Cliff

* Regarding "slip opinions," quoting from Wikipedia:

The Court's opinions are published in three stages. First, a slip opinion is made available on the Court's web site and through other outlets. Next, a number of opinions are bound together in paperback form, called a preliminary print of United States Reports, the official series of books in which the final version of the Court's opinions appears. About a year after the preliminary prints are issued, a final bound volume of U.S. Reports is issued. The individual volumes of U.S. Reports are numbered so that may cite this set of reporters -- or a competing version published by another commercial legal publisher -- to allow those who read their pleadings and other briefs to find the cases quickly and easily.

At present there are 545 volumes of U.S. Reports. Lawyers use an abbreviated format to cite cases, in the form xxx U.S. xxx (yyyy). The number before the "U.S." refers to the volume number, and the number after the U.S. refers to the page within that volume. The number in parentheses is the year in which the case was decided. For instance, if a lawyer wanted to cite Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, and which appears on page 113 of volume 410 of U.S. Reports, he would write 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

The numbering system was obviously adapted by the Finance Department of the company I work for, since documents and files on our finance software system are all numbers that relate to nothing, but the name of the project used by those working on the project is nowhere to be found.  Also, to paraphrase Sandra Bullock, there is a typo in there somewhere in the first paragraph.