Sotomayor’s fierce dissent slams high court’s ruling on evidence from illegal stops
Text of the Fourth Amendment, one of those comprising the famous Bill of Rights, a set of amendments limiting the powers of the federal government in ways imposed on the states, mostly since the mid-20th Century, through judicial fictions about various clauses of the 14th Amendment.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
What is reasonable?
A piece of the text of the Fifth Amendment.
No person shall . . . be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . .
Note there is not a word here or anywhere in the constitution making evidence obtained in defiance of these amendments inadmissible.
All the same, the exclusionary rule has been held by courts to be "grounded in" the constitution, particularly in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
The scope of the rule has meandered much, over the years.
What the court did in the present case was a minor tick in favor of permissiveness after many decades of liberal decisions pushing the rule far in the opposite direction.
A minor conservative tick, if you will.
The wise Latina flipped out and wrote with hatred, siding with the criminals and rioters of America who hate the police and are taught to do so by their parents.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that courts need not throw out evidence of a crime even if the arresting police officer used unlawful tactics to obtain it.
But the low-profile case more likely will be remembered for a fierce and personal dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said the decision would exacerbate illegal stops of minorities.
Her 12-page opinion explained “the talk” that black and brown parents have with their children about police interactions, invoked Ferguson, Mo., and, without direct acknowledgment, referenced the sentiments of the Black Lives Matter movement.
"The talk" is a symptom of black resentment, suspicion, and racial hatred of the majority white society and American police of any race who are, in effect, viewed as race traitors if not white, working for The Man.
And in large measure it is a manifestation of the wholly unsurprising resentment of police by the criminal classes comprising the criminals themselves and their families and friends.
The African-American Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for the 5 to 3 majority.
Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court majority agreed that South Salt Lake police officer Douglas Fackrell did not have reasonable suspicion to stop Strieff as he exited a house being watched for drug activity.
But once Fackrell radioed in and found that there was an outstanding warrant on Strieff for a traffic violation, he was able to arrest and search him, and the discovery of the drugs was legitimate, the justices ruled.
“While Officer Fackrell’s decision to initiate the stop was mistaken, his conduct thereafter was lawful,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.
He said the intervening discovery of the warrant meant the search that discovered the drugs was allowed.
The ruling was unusual in one way because it was the first time since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia that one of the court’s consistent liberals — Justice Stephen G. Breyer — joined colleagues on the right to create a conservative majority.
But more memorable will be the blistering dissents written by Breyer’s fellow liberal justices Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, joined at least in part by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
. . . .
But Sotomayor — “writing only for myself, and drawing on my professional experiences” — produced the kind of personal essay that has made the court’s only Hispanic member a hero to liberals and caused conservatives to label her an activist.
“The white defendant in this case shows that anyone’s dignity can be violated in this manner,” Sotomayor wrote.
“But it is no secret that people of color are disproportionate victims of this scrutiny.”
She referenced writers Michelle Alexander, W.E.B Du Bois and Ta-Nehisi Coates, and wrote of the conversations that minority parents “for generations” have had with their children, “out of fear of how an officer with a gun will react to them.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an infamous exponent of the riot ideology who was all over the Freddie Gray Baltimore case.
In repeated writings he poured out his loathing of police and white America, urging on rioters and championing criminals, cheering the lynch and kangaroo mentality of the Baltimore officials who charged the police involved with criminal behavior and even depraved heart murder.
The Baltimore government, police leadership, and police force are all mostly black and black controlled.
The police charged were mostly black.
Judges and juries have refused to play along in the ensuing trials, so far.
“By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time,” Sotomayor wrote.
“It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged.”
The wise Latina who so specializes in empathy has precious little for police, and even less apparent regard for their work.
Is this the sort of thing O wanted from her?
Is this the sort of judge liberals want to dominate the court?
Really?
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