Warrantless Searches: Not Just For Terrorists Anymore

In the excitement over Obama's inauguration (and Bush's exit), many are forgetting that W's legacy of constitutional disregard will live on as a result of his Supreme Court appointments.

In an unbelievable ruling, the the big court announced today that evidence illegally obtained via a defective warrant is still admissible in court.

Officers in Coffee County arrested petitioner Herring based on a warrant listed in neighboring Dale County’s database. A search incident to that arrest yielded drugs and a gun. It was then revealed that the warrant had been recalled months earlier, though this information had never been entered into the database . . .

Held: When police mistakes leading to an unlawful search are the result of isolated negligence attenuated from the search, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements,the exclusionary rule does not apply

To put it another way-- if the police are targeting you (but can't justify a warrant), they can make one up and later say they made an innocent mistake. The burden will then fall on you to cough up enough money to hire a lawyer and prove "systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements".