Today, in a logic-defying move, the Supreme Court of the Untied States of America made the following ruling:
If you are arrested, even illegally, the Fourth Amendment does not apply. Sorry, I guess I'm paraphrasing. Here's what scotusblog reports:
the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that police do not act unconstitutionally if they conduct a search following an arrest, even if the arrest violated a state law.
More surrealism beyond the fold-
So long as the police had probable cause to make the arrest, the Court said, it makes no difference that a state law barred police from making an arrest when the crime involved was only a misdemeanor traffic offense. "An arrest based on probable cause serves interests that have long been seen as sufficient to justify the seizure" of evidence after the arrest, the opinion added.
So it would appear that if you are speeding, if you have a burned-out turn signal, if you jaywalk, you are fair game for a police search:
In the circumstance that confronted David Lee Moore of Portsmouth, Va., in 2003, police were supposed to give him only a ticket. But, instead, they arrested him, took him to a hotel where they conducted a personal search of Moore, finding about 16 grams of cocaine in a jacket pocket and $516 in cash in a pants pocket. The evidence was used to convict Moore of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute it. He was sentenced to five years in prison, with 18 months of the sentence suspended.
The police took him to a hotel and searched him? For a traffic violation? Maybe it's just me, but this seems to completely obliterate any rights the accused may have possessed. Just slap the cuffs on someone, and all manner of searches and seizures are fair game.
Doesn't that violate the whole point of the Fourth Amendment?
The Court noted that, with its policy on ticketing only after a traffic offense, "Virginia chooses to protect individual privacy and dignity more than the Fourth Amendment requires." But, it added, that choice does not make a resulting search invalid under the federal Constitution.
To what extent does our Constitution protect "individual privacy and dignity"? Not much, or so our highest court ruled today. As long as you are arrested, even if the arrest is for a violation of state law, and even if that same state law considers the arrest illegal, and even if the state supreme court of the state that enacted the law says the arrest is illegal, there is no protection under the constitution for those so accused:
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled that police should have released Moore and could not lawfully conduct a search.
State law, said the Virginia Supreme Court, restricted officers to issuing a ticket in exchange for a promise to appear later in court. Virginia courts dismissed the indictment against Moore.
Is this just one more insult to our already-abused Constitution, or is it the end of the great American experiment that the founders envisioned? One more brick in the police-state wall...
Sorry this isn't a better diary - I could go on and on about this subject. I'm a grad student, and it's final week. Must study, but I just couldn't let this one go by without comment.