Friday, June 16, 2006

Depends On How One Reasonably Defines Reasonable

Court Limits Protection Against Improper Entry - New York Times:
The conditions that made deterrence necessary "in different contexts and long ago" no longer exist, Justice Scalia said, adding that a strict application of the exclusionary rule as envisioned by the court in 1961 "would be forcing the public today to pay for the sins and inadequacies of a legal regime that existed almost half a century ago."
Sure, things are much better today when it comes to police following procedure and all. Oh, wait, isn't that why this case went to the Supreme Court in the first place?
It is rare to find Justice Scalia, a self-described "originalist," incorporating evolving conditions into his constitutional analysis. Almost always, when the court in a constitutional case takes account of changing conditions, the result is an expansion of constitutional rights, rather than, as Justice Scalia advocated in this case, a contraction.
Once again proving that this government has conspired to take the position that the law is only to be followed when doing so furthers the causes of the few (but mighty), and can be ignored whenever doing so would be inconvenient or an obstruction to the will of the few (but righty).
One puzzling aspect of the decision was a concurring opinion by Justice Kennedy, who said that he wished to underscore the point that 'the continued operation of the exclusionary rule, as settled and defined by our precedents, is not in doubt.' Nonetheless, he signed the part of Justice Scalia's opinion that suggested that the exclusionary rule rested on an increasingly weak foundation.
Thereby demonstrating the kind of logical inconsistencies required to support the dismantling of the Constitution in the name of upholding it.

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