Flushing Your Toilet Negates Your 4th Amendment Rights

[TheBrain]

The 4th has been swirling in the bowl for quite some time.

The undermining of the Amendment is predicated upon a legal fiction known as ‘exigent circumstances,’ allowing law enforcement search and seizure authorization sans warrant. This contrivance began in the late 60s with Terry v Ohio and continued through the 80s in a series of rulings intended to ‘fight crime,’ alleged drug offenses primarily.

There is an exception to the rule:

Exigencies created by the government cannot be the basis for excusing compliance with the warrant requirement. See, e.g., United States v. Hackett, 638 F.2d 1179, 1183-85 (9th Cir.'80), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 1001 (1981); United States v. Curran, 498 F.2d 30, 34 (9th Cir.'74). The rule has been applied only in cases where exigencies arose 'because of unreasonable and deliberate [conduct] by officers,' in which the officers ' consciously established the condition which the government now points to as an exigent circumstance.' See, e.g., Curran, 498 F.2d at 34 (emphasis added); Hackett, 638 F.2d at 1183; United States v. Calhoun, 542 F.2d 1094, 1102-03 (9th Cir.'76), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1064 (1977). an honest miscommunication is not a case where the government purposely tried to circumvent the requirements of section 3109. Cf. Hackett, 638 F.2d at 1184-85; Curran, 498 F.2d at 33-34.

Legal Definition of 'Exigent Circumstances'

The problem is any type of police involvement can constitute a government-induced emergency. Going to the wrong door and pounding on it because you smell pot – and it’s not clear from which door the odor emanates – is a clear example of this.

It’s obvious that the fiction of exigent circumstances does not comport to the Framers’ original intent of the Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It says nothing about ‘disregard Amendment in case of emergency.’

That evidence may be lost because it takes too long to secure a warrant is not the concern of the Amendment – this is the codification of civil liberties, not an instrument of law enforcement.

You keep talking about odor emanating and not sure which home it comes from. How often do you think that happens that a LEO smells pot but isn't sure which house it comes from and just kicks in the door anyway? MOST LEOs are not going to enter a home for the sole reason that they smell pot from the front porch, that is just fact.

The more likely scenario that has led to exception is that a LEO arrives at a residence is response to a DV report and hears a woman screaming inside or hears sounds of a struggle happening in the home. Now CLEARLY we don't want that woman's life to depend on the speed with which a warrant can be obtained do we?

I would say of course I don't, and I hope you don't. Now that we have established that there ARE times that we are FOR LEOs entering a home sans warrant we next have to move onto how we decide on an individual case when it was okay, and when it was not? Oh that's right , that's what the courts are for.

Your blanket statements that LEOs should NEVER enter a home without a warrant and that all LEOs are monsters who don't give a shit about anyone's civil rights are both stupid.

 

[BlindBoo]

I'm a pretty big civil libertarian, but this ruling just sounds like common sense to me. Of course, if we weren't blowing billions of dollars a year on arresting people for doing what they want to their own bodies then we wouldn't need to worry about this in the first place.

You can do all kinds of things to your own bodies including killing yourself in the privacy of your own home or making enough noxious alcoholic home brew to put yourself in the loony bin but you can't posess certain chemical compounds without a prescription. Most sane people understand this concept and accept it.

Whitehall the Nanny Statist.

It is illegal to kill yourself even in your own home(most states). It is illegal to distill alcohol in your home. (But you can thank President Carter for Home Brew.)

You've obviously been brain washed by State Propaganda.

Liberty, it's not for Statist like Whitehall here. You can only do what big brother says you can do!

 

[BlindBoo]

I'm a pretty big civil libertarian, but this ruling just sounds like common sense to me. Of course, if we weren't blowing billions of dollars a year on arresting people for doing what they want to their own bodies then we wouldn't need to worry about this in the first place.

The issue ceases to be one of 'civil liberties' when your behavior impacts on others. I couldn't care less what anyone does, until they tell me I need to pay more to 'help' some asshole.

Well , they easily sidestep that issue by claiming that drug users NEVER need society to pay any bills related to their drug use.

Hell, I've even seen idiots try to claim that driving while high on pot does not impair their ability to drive.

Each year, an estimated 443,000 people die prematurely from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, and another 8.6 million live with a serious illness caused by smoking.

CDC - Chronic Disease - Tobacco - At A Glance

Alcohol abuse kills some 75,000 Americans each year and shortens the lives of these people by an average of 30 years, a U.S. government study suggested Thursday.

Alcohol linked to 75,000 U.S. deaths a year - Health - Addictions - msnbc.com

But yet both of these sustances are legal and taxed. Time to stop paying for the drug cartels.


In closed course and driving simulator studies, marijuana’s acute effects on psychomotor performance include minor impairments in tracking (eye movement control) and reaction time, as well as variation in lateral positioning, headway (drivers under the influence of cannabis tend to follow less closely to the vehicle in front of them), and speed (drivers tend to decrease speed following cannabis inhalation).16 In general, these variations in driving behavior are noticeably less consistent or pronounced than the impairments exhibited by subjects under the influence of alcohol.17 Also, unlike subjects impaired by alcohol, individuals under the influence of cannabis tend to be aware of their impairment and try to compensate for it accordingly, either by driving more cautiously18 or by expressing an unwillingness to drive altogether.19

Cannabis and Driving: A Scientific and Rational Review - NORML