Ham Sandwich Indicted!

An important victory for the prosecution. SCOTUS did a good job of keeping this decision narrowly tailored and acknowledging that there are times when evidence from a search/seizure should be admitted, even if the search/seizure was initiated by some mistake or accident. There didn't seem to be any intentional negligence or malfeasance on the part of the sheriffs' departments in this case; the officers were going off of what they thought was solid, accurate information in a computer database. Obviously, there are going to be instances when the exclusionary rule must be enforced, but as the Court makes clear, applications of the rule are going to be fact specific and will require balancing the seriousness of official misconduct with the possiblity of letting an alleged criminal go free. The NYTimes article detailing the ruling is below. January 15, 2009 Justices Say Evidence Is Valid Despite Police Error By DAVID STOUT WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the convi...

This is already in wide circulation, but I thought I'd post anyway, for a couple of reasons: one, I have been remiss in my blog updates, due to a spike in the juvenile crime rate. Two, anytime I can highlight a judge who writes an opinion that doesn't make me want to stab my eyes out of boredom, I will. And three, I agree with him...the officer had probable cause to stop and search the defendant. To say otherwise, is blind naivete--two dudes in a bad part of town in the super early morning house making a hand-off on a corner really can't be construed as anything but a drug deal. In my (apparently dissenting) opinion, anyways. Roberts' text is here . And for those of you who have no idea what Roberts did, he wrote the first few paragraphs of his dissenting opinon in the style of the typical detective novel. Clever.