Hudson, We Have a Problem

Feel free to skip this post if you're looking for well reasoned and supported arguments on the Hudson case just decided. This is going to be pure rant.

In Hudson v. Michigan the Supreme Court voted today to allow police to enter your home without knocking or announcing themselves as long as they have a warrant. Granted, anyone who know's me knows that I'm going to rail against this. So, since I don't want to dissapoint, here we go.

This is judicial activism at its highest form. I remember a comment on this entry that if W's SCOTUS nominees turn out to be conservatives, then W will be a successful president. The thing is, what is a conservative judge? More and more I think this means "Anti-Abortion Liberal." So yes, it is a safe bet that Roberts and Alito will join Scalia as fantastic AAL judges, but conservatives? Not a chance. These judges don't care about "original intent," "keeping the power of government in check," or even the actual words of the US Constitution. Perusing the verdict and reading some reports these appear to be Scalia's reason's for allowing cops to enter your house without knocking or announcing themselves. Holding that cops had to knock would lead to "grave adverse consequence" of a flood of appeals by accused criminals seeking dismissal of their cases. Ahhh, so doing right and upholding the principles of the USC would be a hassle, so we should take the easier path and just make it ok. So now rule of law is driven by the "hassle" factor. I also like, "suppressing evidence is too high of a penalty, Scalia said, for errors by police in failing to properly announce themselves." So again, law is based on Scalia's opinion about the peanalty of a miss-step by the police. I read the 4th again, nowhere does it say, "unless, you know, it's it would be subjectively costly for the government to follow this right." Agian, if conservative judges are supposed to follow the law and not create it on their whims, how's this conservative? If a company came before a judge said in some environmental law case and had a right to say drill for natural gas, but the judge said, "wellll, I think the flowers there are pretty so I'm just going to trump the law" "conservatives" would go nuts, and rightly so. Robert's made the argument during his confirmation hearings that he's just there to call balls and strikes. This is like saying, "Well the pitcher really needs an out here, so I'll call 'strike' on this pitch that just hit the ground." Also, there was all this talk about "respect for precedents" but this ruling erases something like 90 years of them on this issue according to Ginsberg. Scalia makes two other great opinions has he strips us of more 4th Amendment protections. One, that the cops would have found the drugs if they didn't make the mistake, so what's the harm, and announcing themselves may lead to more danger for the officers. On the first, why have protections at all? Cops should just go around looking in people's houses for illegal stuff. Then when they find something they can just arrest you and say, "Well, if I had a tip, or warrant I would have found this stuff anyway, so what's the harm?" On the second, son now if someone enters my home I have to decide if they're an intruder or a cop. He doesn't think that will lead to more violence? What about in "shoot first" states like FL? Again, not a point above has to do with law, just his opinions about things. Keep in mind, now cops can get warrants because a neighbor smell's "something funny." So imagine this, a neighbor with a grudge calls the cops and says she smells something coming from your home. The cops do no additional investigation, and get a warrant. Then then serve this warrant by walking into your home unannounced at 3:00 am, shoot your dog because they felt threatened and you didn't have time to put him up because they didn't announce themselves, but you're innocent. And this isn't even a "what if?" Each part of the above is taken from actual cases heard before courts. Does any of this seem ok? Does any of this sound like its what the founding fathers had in minde when they crafted the USC? Does any of this make you feel safer? Scalia is the prime example of a liberal activist judge. For all his words and speeches to the contrary, he's done more to expand government power than any judge I can remember, all based on his own wishes. If he want's to change law based on his desires he should do what the rest of us do, vote for legislators who make the laws. He is the definition of a AAL judge.

The end result of the ruling, near as I can tell is this. It is wrong for cops to enter a home without announcing themselves. However, everything they find is still admissable in court, you still get your collar and the attorney general still gets his case. So there's zero peanalty for doing so. In fact, it's all upside. All of it. Imagine if Bud Selig announced his plan for steroids in baseball. "Steroids are wrong. But there's no peanalty for using them, and you get paid more for hitting more homeruns." Does anyone think that steroid abuse will go down? Does anyone think that anything's fixed? Scalia and the other AAL's just gave the state an unprecidented amount of power. Not just in the case, but in the words they used to decide it.

This all stems from the "war on drugs" which should be called the "war on the 4th amendment."

My hope is that some president sometime appoints actual conservatives to the bench. But now that the standard is appoint whoever will give more power to the state, which only makes the executive stronger, I don't think this will happen.

And this rant didn't even help me. I'm still upset.