Court OKs police home entry in emergencies

[liliysdad]

Sorry, I worked a midnight shift..kinda out of it.

 

[Rich Lucibella]

Exigent Circumstances has always been the norm. [snip] I may announce my presence, if the situation warrants it.

No one is arguing against that position. Can you honestly say you've read this thread and understood what this case is about?

As far as I am concerned, the assault of a minor is just about as exigent as it gets.

A minor was assaulted? Kindly provide the evidence for that and explain why no-one was charged with the crime.

So, in conclusion.. I always knock and announce , when the situation allows and warrants it. I will not knock and announce my presence in the middle of an assault

Assault is constituted by verbal argument. Do you also perform No-Knocks when there's a family argument going on behind the door?

Don't answer that...it's rhetorical. The real questions on the floor have become about Federal Courts overturning 100 year old State Constitutional guarantees of freedom; about lowering the bar for what constitutes "exigent circumstances".

It's about anything but "I see a potential crime and I'm goin' in" stuff.

Good Lord, does anyone actually READ anymore?

Just remember, the most brutal assault often begins with one punch.

Yup.
Or one muttered threat
Or one angrily pointed finger.
Or one badly worded blog.
Or one poor taste joke to friends.
Or one person who questions authority.
Or one purchase of a firearm.



Just how "safe" do we all desire to be?
Rich

 

[Roberta X]

Yeah, what Rich said -- and then some!

The other point is that there appears to be a lot of two-valued thinking going on, which is not what the previous situation was: It's not a "knock or don't even try to enter" deal but instead a case where there were penalties for not playing by the rules. One of the ways you can (usually) tell the Good Guys is that they at least try to follow the law in letter and in spirit. Kick down a door unannounced due to a hasty decision, find evidence of wrongdoing, maybe save a life, and you might not be able to use the evidence of wrongdoing in court.... Well, them's the breaks. Life is not perfect.

We try to make it perfect at our peril. Who defines "perfect?" You think whoever it is will have a defiention that perfectly matches your own?

Allowing intervention in our lives by government employees whenever they see fit, without so much as a cursory knock on the door, is a step to an unfree society. I'm starting to think it's like Bingo: fill in enough spots and one day, "Bingo!" we haven't got the country they told us about in Civics class.

Or did that already happen?

 

[silicon wolverine]

Quote:
The prevention of life is my primary duty, above all else.



Might want to rephrase that

LAMO!

SW

 

[invention_45]

Are you all sitting down? Not just sipping your coffee? Hope so, because you are about to see an extreme rarity. I'm going to agree with lilysdad.

So, in conclusion.. I always knock and announce , when the situation allows and warrants it. I will not knock and announce my presence in the middle of an assault, no matter how seemingly minor. Just remember, the most brutal assault often begins with one punch.

For once, I am in agreement with lilysdad on something. Particularly that last sentence.

For those of you who think in terms like "it was just a punch in the nose", such actions can kill somebody and sometimes do. What happened was a battery. From the looks of things, it would appear that there was a pretty good chance that more violence was going on inside. When things like that are happening, there's really no time for a cop to consult almanacs, encyclopedias, or his medium to determine what to do. Action is needed.

Apparently Utah case law supports the idea that police should wait until the nose punch has already turned into a dying victim to consider the circumstances to be exigent. I certainly do not agree with that thinking and hope that Florida's case law doesn't support it.

The root cause of this problem is that Utah appears to be sufficiently populated with idiots that this state of affairs, namely that a cop should be ensnared in a web of rules and regulations when somebody's life is at risk, has come to exist. That is the problem.

Utah should fix this problem by joining the modern world. The prosecutor was clearly attempting to force that issue. Good for him/her.

Although Antipitas has the SCOTUS invalidating state precedent right, and that is a bad thing, SCOTUS nor the prosecutor did not cause this. Utah did.

When the state of affairs becomes sufficiently untwisted so that entering my house to protect me from the anticipated punched nose is considered by law more exigent than the entering my house to protect me or anyone from a joint in the ashtray, then I'll start applying logic a little more rigorously.

Until then, I support what the police did and am happy with the outcome.

A twisted system requires twisted thinking to work.

 

[OuTcAsT]

The prevention of harm to life and limb is my primary duty, above all else.

Really ? my understanding is that the SCOTUS has ruled on more than one occasion that you have no such "Duty"
That is the reason that most of us that own weapons, and CCW, do so.

The fact that you do that job, in spite of not having the responsibility to do so, is commendable.

 

[invention_45]

In doing this, the SCOTUS also ignored the "objectively reasonable belief" standard and redefined what that standard means. As it now stands, only a reasonable belief is necessary to enter a private place without a warrant. That is a much lower standard than an objectively reasonable belief.

They didn't actually say that. Right after it says "Held:...", the court reaffirms the requirement for an objectively reasonable belief.

Now, what the SC considered to be objective and reasonable happens to be far more in line with what I think is objective and reasonable than the State of Utah does.

Roberts goes on to explain what lilysdad said at great length.

Utah is saying that the police cannot enter without knocking if they only see a battery taking place. Maybe that's how their statutes read. Maybe it's just from precedent. I don't know. But it's stupid on its face. That is what the SC overturned, and well it should have been overturned.

I checked the Florida constitution, and it basically says "what the US constitution said" on that issue.

The other thing that Roberts writes about is the lack of any sensible distinction between a knock and a shouted announcement. I mean, I'm no great fan of baseless (like for finding some pot) police searches without warrants, as you already know. But come on, what's the difference between a knock and a shout, particularly during such a brouhaha as was going on in the house in question? Nada, and Roberts pegged that one correctly.

Bear in mind that my personal opinion is that I didn't expect Bush apointees to be particularly wise. So I am not arguing this out of being a fan of Roberts. But he wrote what I would have written, whether I like the politician who nominated him or not.

This egg is on Utah's face, not on Roberts'.

 

[invention_45]

Or one muttered threat
Or one angrily pointed finger.
Or one badly worded blog.
Or one poor taste joke to friends.
Or one person who questions authority.
Or one purchase of a firearm.

I haven't seen, at least in Florida statutes, any prohibition against any of these things. That has to mean they're not widely seen as crimes, and not widely seen as requiring police intervention.

A punch in the nose is CLEARLY, at least in Florida, a crime known as battery.

 

[leadcounsel]

Been a standing law for a long time... just like firefighters and paramedics. They don't need permission in a real emergency. It's one of the exceptions to a warrant.

 

[OuTcAsT]

Or one muttered threat
Or one angrily pointed finger.
Or one badly worded blog.
Or one poor taste joke to friends.
Or one person who questions authority.
Or one purchase of a firearm.


I haven't seen, at least in Florida statutes, any prohibition against any of these things. That has to mean they're not widely seen as crimes, and not widely seen as requiring police intervention

At least....not yet....:barf:

 

[Al Norris]

Apparently Utah case law supports the idea that police should wait until the nose punch has already turned into a dying victim to consider the circumstances to be exigent.

Oh that's just disingenuous. Utah case law provides for greater protections to individual privacy than does the 4th amendment. That's what the trial court said. That's what the appeals court said. That's the Utah Supreme Court said. Stevens goes so far as to say, "Federal interests are not offended when a single State elects to provide greater protection for its citizens than the Federal Constitution requires."

Yet according to some of you, it is just fine to overturn State protections in order to achieve the lowest common denominator.

This begs the question: What then is the point of having independent States and what is the point of their Constitutions if they are all to be held to this, the lowest standard?

As I said, this turns federalism on its ear.

The Republic is dead! Long live the Nation!! Hip-Hip, Hooray!

 

[Capt. Charlie]

I haven't posted in this thread since early on. The reason? Antipita's revelation casts the problem in a whole new light.

While I would still like clear guidelines on the question of exigent circumstance entries so that I DON'T violate the 4th (and, to keep me from being sued), the fact that the ruling tosses state's rights out the proverbial window makes the problem, which is still a separate and important problem, pale by comparison.

 

[invention_45]

Oh that's just disingenuous. Utah case law provides for greater protections to individual privacy than does the 4th amendment. That's what the trial court said. That's what the appeals court said. That's the Utah Supreme Court said. Stevens goes so far as to say, "Federal interests are not offended when a single State elects to provide greater protection for its citizens than the Federal Constitution requires."

Anti, you have missed my point.

It is a bad thing that the SCOTUS has overruled the state courts in general. But how did this come about?

The root cause of this unfortunate action is that Utah apparently contains enough dimwits that think a simple punch in the nose shouldn't attract the undivided attention of a police officer so that its case law has set up a situation wherein a police officer there is not expected to consider such an event an exigent situation.

Fact is, there are probably quite a few people in Utah who have the good sense to know that a cop SHOULD be able to consider a punch in the nose an exigent circumstance and would very much like said cop to pursue into his house upon seeing such a thing happen. They deserve the protection that the Utah courts were derelict in giving them.

This state of affairs was seen by the prosecutor who pushed the issue to the SCOTUS, and rightly so.

When a state makes ridiculous laws and decisions, it risks getting them tagged as unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court.

 

[invention_45]

me:

Quote:
Or one muttered threat
Or one angrily pointed finger.
Or one badly worded blog.
Or one poor taste joke to friends.
Or one person who questions authority.
Or one purchase of a firearm.

I haven't seen, at least in Florida statutes, any prohibition against any of these things. That has to mean they're not widely seen as crimes, and not widely seen as requiring police intervention

OuTcAsT:

At least....not yet....

----

Before the start of Prohibition II and the Patriot act, we weren't close to having such things become illegal. But since then, we've moved a lot closer.