Scalia and Roberts should be investigated for "performance enhancing" drugs. There is as much reason for the exclusionary rule as ever.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/opinion/16mon4.html
Last month, the court eroded the rule still further in Herring v. United States. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts declared that evidence need not necessarily be disqualified if it was illegally obtained because of errors in police databases. Isolated mistakes of this sort, he insisted, are not among the exclusionary rule’s “core concerns.”
Justice Ruth Ginsburg, in dissent, was right to point out that in the modern age database errors can lead to many people’s rights being denied. The harm to a citizen who is arrested and searched on the street because a bureaucrat has made a computer error, she noted, is just the sort of invasion the founders worried about when they drafted the Fourth Amendment.
After Hudson and Herring, critics of the exclusionary rule have high hopes that the Roberts court will take the ultimate step of overruling Mapp v. Ohio. That would be a great setback for the rule of law.
Despite Justice Scalia’s claims, police misconduct is rampant. In the last few years, the Atlanta and Oakland police departments have had major scandals over officers’ lying to obtain search warrants. In this same period, of course, the federal government engaged in an illegal domestic wiretapping program, the extent of which is still unknown.
The exclusionary rule does more than simply put a check on police misconduct. It protects the integrity of the judicial system. If courts put people like Ms. Mapp in prison based on the actions of lawless, marauding police officers, respect for the law suffers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/opinion/16mon4.html
Last month, the court eroded the rule still further in Herring v. United States. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts declared that evidence need not necessarily be disqualified if it was illegally obtained because of errors in police databases. Isolated mistakes of this sort, he insisted, are not among the exclusionary rule’s “core concerns.”
Justice Ruth Ginsburg, in dissent, was right to point out that in the modern age database errors can lead to many people’s rights being denied. The harm to a citizen who is arrested and searched on the street because a bureaucrat has made a computer error, she noted, is just the sort of invasion the founders worried about when they drafted the Fourth Amendment.
After Hudson and Herring, critics of the exclusionary rule have high hopes that the Roberts court will take the ultimate step of overruling Mapp v. Ohio. That would be a great setback for the rule of law.
Despite Justice Scalia’s claims, police misconduct is rampant. In the last few years, the Atlanta and Oakland police departments have had major scandals over officers’ lying to obtain search warrants. In this same period, of course, the federal government engaged in an illegal domestic wiretapping program, the extent of which is still unknown.
The exclusionary rule does more than simply put a check on police misconduct. It protects the integrity of the judicial system. If courts put people like Ms. Mapp in prison based on the actions of lawless, marauding police officers, respect for the law suffers.
