On May 16, 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court voted 8 to 1 to suspend the Fourth Amendment.
When I speak to classes, from fifth-graders to college students, about the Constitution, I tell them stories of how we acquired these fundamental individual liberties, and what it continually takes to keep them.
One of the stories that always engages these listeners begins with a young lawyer, John Adams (later to become our second president), sitting in back of a King George III courtroom in Boston. Before judges in white wigs and scarlet robes, a Massachusetts lawyer, James Otis, was arguing for nearly five hours against British customs officers and soldiers breaking into colonists’ homes and offices with warrants (“writs of assistance”) they wrote themselves without going to a judge.
At home, in his notebook, Adams, describing Otis as “a flame of fire,” declared on that day “American independence was then and there born ... Every man of (a) crowded audience appeared to go away, as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain.” (“Three Men of Boston,” John R. Galvin, Brassey’s).
On May 16, 2011, in these United States, eight justices, apparently unaware of the deep roots the Fourth Amendment has in our history, ruled in Kentucky v. King — as warned in the interpretation of the lone dissenter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg — to suspend the Fourth Amendment:
“How ‘secure’ do our homes remain if police, armed with no warrant, can pound on doors at will and, on hearing sounds indicative of things moving, forcibly enter and search for evidence of unlawful activity?”
This case began in Lexington, Ky., when police, aware of an ongoing drug deal, followed the suspect to an apartment complex. They went to the wrong apartment. But outside that apartment, they smelled marijuana, knocked hard, announced who they were and at that point heard noises coming from inside the apartment. What could these sounds be caused by? Evidence being destroyed, the police believed, but without actual proof.
In view of the marijuana smell and what they suspected, they could have easily obtained a warrant. Judges are very accommodating in this context. But the police roared they were going in and knocked down the door.
They did see drugs, but were the noises before breaking in evidence of movements to hide the drugs? After the lower courts in Kentucky upheld the warrantless entry and search, the state’s Supreme Court reversed that decision on Fourth Amendment grounds that a warrant should have been obtained.
At stake — as later in the U.S. Supreme Court — was whether “exigent circumstances” lawfully justified the police short-circuiting the Fourth Amendment without a warrant. “Exigent circumstances” exist when a suspect inside the apartment attempts to flee or evidence is being destroyed.
Link:
http://www.phillyburbs.com/blogs/opinions/intel/u-s-supreme-court-to-suspends-fourth-amendment/article_afac50ef-7f09-5e51-a0b3-6e573d9c14d3.html