A Dangerous ruling...
This is a terrible ruling and needs to go to the Supreme Court and be overturned. It would completely upend any semblance of justice in the justice system to allow for raids with retroactive warrants. To allow police to burst into someone's house and destroy private property until they find something upon which to obtain a warrant smacks of the GRU or Nazi secret service - not the rule of law.
A warrant is NOT REQUIRED when Probable Cause exists. That is my understanding of the law.
If cops hear a child screaming in horror as they come to my door, and the child is inside. They are given the right to enter, and a MAN was recently charged with Obstruction for trying to stop them from coming in and talking to his wife.
In this case, they had an informant who gave a signal, indicating that drugs were there.
If you SQUINT this is like having a DEPUTIZED Citizen call for help. (I agree, squinting required).
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The wording by blarman makes it sound like: "they RANDOMLY sacked this guys house, found something, and then later put THAT in their Warrant Request"... That kind of case MUST be thrown out.
But, having overhead the phone calls, having EYES inside, seeing the crime, and then going in before the person has a chance to clean things up...
I'm sorry, I am just not as outraged by this.
Take away the informant.
Take away the signal that drugs were inside.
And I would be on the same page. Otherwise, what we have is:
1) A Person was in felony possession of illegal narcotics
2) An agent (informant) of the police confirmed this with a signal
3) Using said probably cause... This criminal was caught when the police entered the home and found the illegal narcotics!
AGAIN, the facts matter. The judge was right, IMO. IF they expected drugs, and found GUNS, or DEAD BODIES., and the warrant was being done for GUNS.
Then the judge MUST Throw out the GUNS or BODIES, as the probably cause was NOT for those items. They stumbled across them ILLEGALLY in that case.
IF he had drugs + those things. Well, now it's interesting, but I would only let the drugs stand, if I were the judge.
There are several other good explanations and examples on the Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_...
Of particular note are the exceptions granted for warrantless searches. I couldn't find that the argument in this case was based on any of these, meaning that this would create a new precedent - and a dangerous one in my opinion.
But an informant who was just inside a facility and confirmed seeing what he was looking for, while working with the police, and signaled as much.
That's not "informing". That's confirmation.
This person, acting on behalf of the police, witnessed the situation in real-time. Now, if they ONLY used his "information" AND he was never there, and they just went there and kicked the door down... THEN I agree with you.
I have been those eyes in the past. Sneaking knives/weapons past security screening into courthouses, etc.
I am working on behalf of the police when I do these things. And I expect not to go to jail if security catches me.
It's not a "We barged in, found something, then filled out the paperwork" case.
FINALLY, it is important to know that I have seen the criminal element at work. My old boss was threatened by someone...
They screamed "You wait ... I have the best lawyers money can buy!"
My boss smiled behind the door, with me in the office and said "That's why we buy judges... Arsehole!" [only loud enough for me to hear, LOL]
So, having lived in a world where phone calls are made in advance of the warrants, or because a warrant is being requested...
Maybe I have a different view.
PS - Thank you for your service in law enforcement!
They raided Trumps Lawyer and collected his files?
General Flynn gets bankrupted?
TrueTheVote wins the lawsuit, can't collect legal fees.
Worse. FISA Warrants issued on LIES. THAT concerns me more than this. Yes because it was a real bad guy.
But we have a HUGELY broken system already. The corruption is deep.
And I worked WITH law enforcement. NEVER As... Just to make sure the record is straight. I want no credit I haven't earned.
The fact that NOBODY is behind bars for the FISA Abuse is a sign of how bad things are.
It's not over yet. I still have hope that Barr will expose the treachery that went on here. We already know that there are criminal indictments under seal.
This is a very dark day for the country and the Constitution.
Everything John Ross wrote about is coming to pass except the solution.
Thanks for posting, blarman. 👍
Abused by Obama who routinely ignored court orders against him and his admin, the deep state took that for granted and now we see the results.
The Judges who approved the illegally obtained evidence were probably appointed by Obama.
We are sinking deeper and deeper into Gestapo "justice".
Nevertheless, he remains a far better choice than any of the twits the democratic socialist wannabe commie Jackass Party has to offer.