Police use doorknob swabs to search for guns, drugs

Sounds like the police in this jurisdiction have and overstaffing problem.

What department has time for officers to go around to residences and swab doorknobs????? Certainly not any of the PD's around here, they have too many actual crimes like murders and robberies to investigate.

:rolleyes:
 
What about the paper money in your pocket? What if the $5 bill was recently used in a crack transaction? Woluld it not have residue from the prior user?


Easy to transfer residue from paper to your doorknob?
 
I don't disagree Tamara, but we're not living in a libertarian wonderland . . . I think folks discussing this are just being pragmatic in speculating as to what's likely to be the denouement of the story.
 
I don't disagree Tamara, but we're not living in a libertarian wonderland . . .
Click to expand...

In this instance, mine's a "libertarian wonderland" point of view in much the same way that Ronald Reagan is L. Neil Smith.

Will some judge uphold it? Probably. You can always find some judge who got 1984 and his AmGov 101 textbook confused who'll rubberstamp anything in the name of Law & Order. But to treat the Constitution as a set of loopholes that must be threaded and annoyances that must be avoided in the name of an efficient pursuit of "justice" is repugnant.

I'm sorry, I grew up during the Cold War. This is the kind of method the KGB would have used to find the American hero while he was hiding in the basement of the beautiful dissident widow. This is not American. This is crap. This is the evil tactic of a slave state.

This is rapidly going too far. :mad:
 
Here's today's editorial from the same newspaper that provided the article in my original post:
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2407886

Get a warrant




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.
- FOURTH AMENDMENT
The Constitution of the United States

Hey, Bub! You need a house to go with this doorknob!
- DAFFY DUCK
The Stupor Salesman

The popular lore of the past generation is that it is the counsel for the defense who is always trying to win points by splitting hairs, raising the finest of legal points and getting criminal clients freed on a technicality.
But the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is not a technicality. It is a pillar of our basic law. And it is increasingly the attorneys for the government who are stretching the law, and credulity, by making outrageous arguments in court.
The latest, and perhaps most desperate, of these arguments is that your doorknob isn't part of your house.
There are at least three Utah cases before the federal courts where defendants in drug and firearms cases are challenging their arrests because some of the evidence against them was gathered by somebody who rubbed their doorknob with a special cloth that supposedly picks up any traces of illegal substances, and only then went to get a search warrant.
The fact that the defense lawyers in these cases don't clearly have slam-dunk arguments in their favor only shows how far we have come from the founding ideals of our nation, dragged there largely by the addict-like thinking that ignores our true best interests in search of the short-term buzz felt by busting druggies.
The use of doorknob swabs, infrared cameras, satellite intelligence or Mr. Spock's sensor array would all be perfectly legal as long as those using such technologies to examine your home and hearth have a search warrant. And, despite the frequent wails of some police and prosecutors, search warrants are not written on gold leaf with unicorn blood.
Warrants are boiler-plate documents that judges sign in bunches as long as the law enforcement officers involved meet the test set for them by James Madison - say what you are looking for, where you are looking for it and why you think you are going to find that thing in that place.
An officer who cannot answer those questions to the satisfaction of a judge should not be examining your doorknob, or any other part of your home.
An officer who can answer them can get a warrant, and proceed to catch the bad guys without defiling the Constitution in the process.
 
What's really happening is that the police in question know who's dealing, but they haven't got any evidence that would justify a warrant.

So they go fishing in the doorknob pool, get their swab to justify a warrant, then they are off and running.


Trampling the Consitution underfoot. :barf:





Tam has it right on the money.
 
Summary: Police in Utah are using swabs taken from the doorknobs of homes, using an Ionscan to look for microscopic particles of drugs or gunpowder, and using the subsequent results to apply for search warrants.
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Welcome to the prison economy. Why do they even have to bother asking for search warrants anymore??? Probable cause, it's anything, it's everything. I hope you all enjoy the police state.
 
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