"We didn't have a warrant, but we were getting one, so the illegal search should be good."
Screw this noise. Throw out the evidence, then charge every officer involved with violation of the 4th Amendment.
And throw these judges out of their offices. Preferably via a high window.
3 comments:
There are very few and rare consequences for cops who abuse their power. There are NO CONSEQUENCES for judges who abuse their power. Till that ugly fact changes they will continue to abuse their power.
"There are very few and rare consequences for cops who abuse their power"
Jose Guerena,
Erik Scott,
John Crawford,
Autumn Steele,
Justine Damond,
Jack Yantis,
Andrew Finch,
Daniel Shaver,
Richard Black,
Melyda Corado,
Botham Jean,
Jemel Roberson,
Emantic Bradford,
Dennis Tuttle,
and Rhogena Nicholas
could not be reached for comment.
It's terrible, but I can understand the judges' "what difference does it make" attitude here. At least the cops had more than sufficient evidence to get a warrant from even the pickiest judge, and I suppose it was the middle of the night, with a likelihood that the drugs would have been moved again if they waited for business hours.
The bigger problem is that if they'd NOT had enough evidence, they'd have probably woke up a judge and got the warrant signed anyway. They would pick the judge, so they'd probably be able to get one that wouldn't even read the whole form, let alone question the cops' claims. If that wasn't sufficient, they could lie on the warrant application. There would be a good chance that it would never be noticed, that more lying plus judges that are biased towards the cops would keep the evidence of lying hidden, or that the judge would still believe the cops against the evidence. And if the lie was exposed in court, all they'd lose is the bust.
Cops don't get in trouble for lies unless someone gets killed, and often not even then. The BATF's original warrant for the Branch Davidians included a lie - they used evidence of drugs against the _former_ residents of that compound to make it a no-knock warrant (and approval for a plan that _started_ with killing all the dogs), never mind that they had to know the current leadership was dead set against drugs.
They were really looking for metal receivers that had been milled for full-auto trigger links, which obviously could not be flushed away, but would be difficult to find if well-hidden in a place housing over 200 - BATF's intention apparently was to surreptitiously plant bugs that would let them know either where the parts were hidden when not being worked on, or when the parts would be out and in the work shop - but they so mishandled it that local news reporters heard about the raid and would have been filming it if BATF hadn't stopped them at a barricade. (The residents definitely expected the raid, so they don't have the excuse that they didn't know these were federal police - but in Texas people still have the right to protect themselves against uniformed gunmen breaking in illegally and shooting their dogs.)
These lies got people killed, including federal agents on the first raid. That's felony murder. And repeated investigations, including a special report by !@#$%^& Ken Starr, whitewashed this.
Ultimately, the failure to officially acknowledge that there had been _any_ wrongdoing by the BATF agents and their federal prosecutor co-conspirators, convinced the Branch Davidians that they'd never get a fair trial. This got many _children_ killed. And NO government employee was even given a paid vacation over this. So what difference does it make if the cops take a few extra minutes to get a judge with a rubber stamp out of bed?
Post a Comment