Supreme Court's Term

[d-ray657]

A most interesting seminar today. Edwin Chermerinsky, Dean of the UC-Irvine Law School spoke on the Supreme Court’s just completed term. As directed by Mr. BHunter, here is my report.

The Supreme Court decided only 65 cases this year. That’s down from an average of around 160 per year in the ‘80s and 200 in the ‘50s. For those of us who aren’t particularly enamored with the leanings of this court, that is good news.

There were a couple of cases decided by the conservative majority that should be of some concern for our libertarian friends – or any friend of liberty.

One case found that police officers were entitled to immunity from civil liability when they completely ignored a homeowner’s denial of permission to search the house. The officers had been tipped that the woman’s son was planning to commit a violent act. The officers visited the house and both the mother and son denied that he had any weapons. The cops asked if they could take a look around the house and she said that they couldn’t without a warrant. They pushed her aside and searched the house – finding nothing. Their justification for conducting the search was that they expected the mother to consent to the search and, when she didn’t they became suspicious.

The family brought suit for violation of their Fourth Amendment Rights, but the Court ruled that the officers had qualified immunity because there was no case on the books that had found a Fourth Amendment violation under similar facts. The standard for qualified immunity is whether at the time of the Constitutional violation, the right was sufficiently established that a reasonable officer should have known that his conduct violated the Constitution. My question is, what reasonable officer would not know that it is illegal to conduct a warrantless search of a person’s home after the person has just denied permission to enter? Where does the castle doctrine fit in here?

The other case of concern is that an investigator was absolutely immune from liability for intentionally testifying falsely to three different grand juries to obtain an indictment against a citizen, when each indictment was thrown out. Does that sound like a police state to you?

A third decision was that prison guards in rent-a-jails are not subject to actions for civil rights violations. They are fulfilling an essential state function, but are not liable for violating the constitutional limitations on state power?

More in another post.

Regards,

D-Ray