Daily Archives: May 3, 2014

Larry Downing/Reuters

When asked about polarization between justices, Ginsburg said that liberals who criticize the conservative Scalia forget that he "is one of the most pro-Fourth Amendment judges on the court." The Fourth Amendment protects U.S. citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. Here is an excerpt from that interview:

WSJ: How deeply polarized is the court?

GINSBURG: [Justice Antonin] Scalia is often criticized by people who would not be labeled conservative. Liberals dont count his Fourth Amendment cases or the confrontation clause cases. He is one of the most pro-Fourth Amendment judges on the court.

WSJ: Not more pro-Fourth Amendment than you.

GINSBURG: No. But weve been together in all the confrontation cases and many of the Fourth Amendment cases. For example, that wonderful, wonderful one with the GPS, and the dog sniff cases.

The "GPS case" was United States v. Jones, in which both justices sided with the courts 2012 ruling that police violated the Fourth Amendment when they attached a GPS device to track a vehicle. In the Florida v. Jardines case, Ginsburg and Scalia both sided with the courts 2013 ruling that police officers use of a drug-sniffing dog at a persons front porch constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment.

In both of those cases, it was Scalia who delivered the Supreme Courts opinion.

There are other recent examples where Scalia has demonstrated pro-Fourth Amendment opinions, as the Los Angeles Times has reported. That includes Scalias opposition to the Supreme Courts majority opinion that permits police to use anonymous tips to stop cars on highways. And in 2013, he fiercely dissented to the Courts ruling that police can routinely swab for DNA from arrested people.

Recently, the Supreme Court has considered whether police can search the digital contents of cellphones without warrants. In reporting on this case, a number of news outlets noted that Scalia has become a champion of the Fourth Amendment.

Read more from the original source:

Liberal Supreme Court Justice Comes To The Defense Of Scalia

By Brandon Stoneburg

bstoneburg@eveningsun.com

@b_stoneburg on Twitter

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently gave its opinion on the fourth amendment as it pertains to drivers in the Keystone State. Police will no longer need a warrant to search a vehicle; it can be done based solely on probable cause.

Local police chiefs said while the policy is new, not much will change in how officers handle traffic stops and searches.

"There are no grave changes here because you still need probable cause, which is key," Penn Township Police Chief Jim Laughlin said. "Nobody is going to arbitrarily pull a vehicle over and search it."

There were already exceptions to warrant laws, Southwestern Regional Police Chief Gregory Bean said. For example, an officer didn't need a warrant to search a vehicle if illegal items were visible and there was probable cause, which Laughlin described as an officer using his senses to see or smell contraband, drugs or weapons.

A search could also be performed if the driver admits to being in possession of something illegal.

"If you have probable cause and articulate it, you can do an immediate search instead of holding the car and waiting for a warrant," Laughlin said. "Before, if you thought there was probable cause, but were denied access by the car operator, you would've had to wait."

A safeguard is still in place against any potential illegal searches. If the police officer fails to show or explain probable cause, the defendant could challenge it and the evidence could be thrown out, York County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Tim Barker said.

Read the rest here:

Local police: Updated vehicle-search law still requires probable cause

Pennsylvania drivers once had a choice when faced with a police request to search their cars: Consent or make officers get a warrant.

But the state Supreme Court has ruled police in Pennsylvania no longer need warrants to search private vehicles if they suspect evidence of a crime inside.

The decision broadens the power of police to search cars without a judge first deciding whether they have a valid reason to do so. The practice was previously allowed only when officers could show the evidence might be destroyed or moved if they waited.

It also brings Pennsylvania into line with a majority of states that have adopted a federal exception to the Fourth Amendment's protection against warrantless searches when it comes to vehicles a legal doctrine that grew out of the Prohibition-era war on bootleggers.

Justice Seamus P. McCaffery, who wrote Tuesday's 4-2 majority opinion, said the change is needed to remedy decades of "fractured jurisprudence" that have left police and prosecutors with little guidance.

Pennsylvania courts had largely followed federal courts, allowing warrantless vehicle searches until 1995. That year the state Supreme Court reversed itself in a series of decisions that warrantless searches of cars were illegal if the officers had time to get a judge's approval.

"Accordingly, it remains difficult, if not impossible, for police officers in the field to determine how [the state Supreme Court] would rule in motor vehicle search-and-seizure cases, the circumstances of which are almost endlessly variable," wrote McCaffery, a former Philadelphia police officer.

Chief Justice Ronald D. Castile and Justice J. Michael Eakin joined McCaffery's opinion. Justice Thomas G. Saylor filed his own opinion, saying that although he had reservations, he joined McCaffery "for the sake of certainty and consistency."

In a strongly worded dissent joined by Justice Max Baer, Justice Debra McCloskey Todd said the majority "eviscerated the strong privacy protections" the state Constitution provides motorists and "heedlessly contravenes over 225 years of unyielding protection against unreasonable search and seizure which our people have enjoyed as their birthright."

The decision stems from a Philadelphia drug case in which Sheim Gary was stopped Jan. 15, 2010, by police who believed the tint of his sport utility vehicle's windows was too dark. The officers smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle and when the police asked, Gary admitted he had some weed.

Read more:

Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules police don't need warrants to search cars