Hi,
Not quite. Shredding papers or driving a car are not inherently suspicious actions. Burning clothes or attempting to flush them down a toilet are.
No question about it. Yes, they had probable cause. Probable cause is necessary but not sufficient to conduct a search. In addition, either a warrant or exigent circumstances is required. Clearly a warrant was not obtained. So, the question is, were the circumstances truly exigent. Well, the definition of exigent that applies in this case is "requiring immediate aid or action." Since, apparently, the behavior was repeated over a period of time, either each occurrence was exigent, or 'immediate' covers a longer span than I'd previously thought.
Perhaps the first incident was exigent. Rapid action taken while waiting for a warrant. I can't see that as a justification for repeating that. It would be like saying, "No, we never did get a warrant for that wire tap. They could have said something any time. Indeed, after listening for just four months, we finally heard them incriminate themselves."
Yes.
Yes, but that is a terrible argument. Consider its implication. Any cop, at any time, can break into any house, or arrest any citizen, with just the flimsiest of excuses and claim exigent circumstances because a warrant would take too long. The constitutional procedure is from probable cause to convincing a judge to getting a warrant to action. To short circuit that does and must require exceptional circumstances or the protection under law becomes meaningless. The excuse "it takes too long to get a warrant" is insufficient and, most probably, false.
You are ignoring the meaning of 'exigent'. Is the defendant's car, parked on his property and not in use at that time an imminent threat to the evidence? Does imminent mean "tomorrow, probably, or maybe the next day -- well, at least sometime in the next week -- the defendant might go to his farm and burn his plants, maybe, I think."
So, the inefficiency of the judicial system is sufficient justification for the executive system to ignore the law in its actions? So, if all the judges go on a ten year vacation, the cops will eliminate all crime. Of course, the stench of corpses hanging from the light poles might offend some people. But that's OK, they're just bleeding heart liberals.
--Pete
(08-29-2010, 06:03 PM)Jester Wrote: But that's a closed circle. If there is an exception to needing a warrant for potential destruction of evidence that cannot be invoked until you've conducted a search with a warrant, then you have a useless exception.
Not quite. Shredding papers or driving a car are not inherently suspicious actions. Burning clothes or attempting to flush them down a toilet are.
Quote:The police require probable cause to conduct searches, they can't just do it randomly. It is that threshold that must be passed, and it appears obvious it was. Now, the question then is whether they require a warrant or not.
No question about it. Yes, they had probable cause. Probable cause is necessary but not sufficient to conduct a search. In addition, either a warrant or exigent circumstances is required. Clearly a warrant was not obtained. So, the question is, were the circumstances truly exigent. Well, the definition of exigent that applies in this case is "requiring immediate aid or action." Since, apparently, the behavior was repeated over a period of time, either each occurrence was exigent, or 'immediate' covers a longer span than I'd previously thought.
Perhaps the first incident was exigent. Rapid action taken while waiting for a warrant. I can't see that as a justification for repeating that. It would be like saying, "No, we never did get a warrant for that wire tap. They could have said something any time. Indeed, after listening for just four months, we finally heard them incriminate themselves."
Quote:The strongest arguments for seem to be: that they went onto his property to plant the tracker, and possibly violated his privacy in doing so; and that the investigation was over a long enough period that it would have been easy to obtain a warrant in any case. (I believe the second argument at least would have convinced me, but then, I'm not a judge.)
Yes.
Quote:The strongest argument against appears to be that obtaining a warrant would potentially take months, and that the operation (and the evidence) would have been destroyed or disappeared by then. This strikes me as excessive, but it's not obviously incorrect.
Yes, but that is a terrible argument. Consider its implication. Any cop, at any time, can break into any house, or arrest any citizen, with just the flimsiest of excuses and claim exigent circumstances because a warrant would take too long. The constitutional procedure is from probable cause to convincing a judge to getting a warrant to action. To short circuit that does and must require exceptional circumstances or the protection under law becomes meaningless. The excuse "it takes too long to get a warrant" is insufficient and, most probably, false.
Quote:Was evidence about to be destroyed? I don't know. But if it was, then it fits the definition: you can't use one half of the definition to invalidate a clearly-stated exception from the other half, unless your argument is that the definition itself is meaningless or contradictory. Destruction of evidence is almost never going to endanger the life of an officer, but yet is listed separately. So long as probable cause exists, and there is a demonstrable danger of evidence being destroyed in the time it would take to get a warrant, then there is at least a plausible argument that exigent circumstances apply.
You are ignoring the meaning of 'exigent'. Is the defendant's car, parked on his property and not in use at that time an imminent threat to the evidence? Does imminent mean "tomorrow, probably, or maybe the next day -- well, at least sometime in the next week -- the defendant might go to his farm and burn his plants, maybe, I think."
Quote:The question of plausibility relies on the relative timelines of obtaining a warrant, vs. the time required to destroy the relevant evidence,
So, the inefficiency of the judicial system is sufficient justification for the executive system to ignore the law in its actions? So, if all the judges go on a ten year vacation, the cops will eliminate all crime. Of course, the stench of corpses hanging from the light poles might offend some people. But that's OK, they're just bleeding heart liberals.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?