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US Supreme Court Increases Police Search Powers

posted by Dopefish on Friday February 28 2014, @06:00PM   
from the freedom-is-not-free dept.

GungnirSniper writes "By a six to three vote, the US Supreme Court has ruled police may enter a home if one occupant allows it even after another previously did not consent.

In the decision on Tuesday in Fernandez v. California, the Court determined since the suspect, Walter Fernandez, was removed from the home and arrested, his live-in girlfriend's consent to search was enough. The Court had addressed a similar case in 2006 in Georgia v. Randolph, but found that since the suspect was still in the home and against the search, it should have kept authorities from entering.

RT.com notes "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the minority by Justices Kagan and Sotomayor, marking a gender divide among the Justices in the case wrote the dissenting opinion, calling the decision a blow to the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits 'unreasonable searches and seizures.'"

Could this lead to police arresting people objecting to searches to remove the need for warrants?"

• If we are going to try to be betterIf we are going to try to be better (Score: 5, Insightful) by Kromagv0 on Friday February 28 2014, @07:08PM

  by Kromagv0 (1825) on Friday February 28 2014, @07:08PM (#8697) Homepage

  If we are going to try to be better then at least have editors provide a link to the actual Supreme Court ruling [supremecourt.gov]. Especially since the actual decisions are fairly easy to read and usually provide fairly detailed reasoning for the ruling.

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• Re:If we are going to try to be betterRe:If we are going to try to be better (Score: 2, Funny) by hubie on Friday February 28 2014, @07:26PM

  by hubie (1068) on Friday February 28 2014, @07:26PM (#8710) Journal

  Thank you very much. I've never read a ruling before and I find this quite interesting; certainly more interesting than the quick summary in TFA. (Nice typesetting too. I wonder if one could download the LaTeX style page for that?) :P

  Parent

  • PDF Warnings?PDF Warnings? (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Friday February 28 2014, @08:12PM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Friday February 28 2014, @08:12PM (#8735) Journal

    Thanks all for the feedback. Should we also warn when the links are to PDFs?

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    Parent

    • Re:PDF Warnings?(Score: 2, Insightful) by rts008 on Friday February 28 2014, @10:25PM

      by rts008 (3001) on Friday February 28 2014, @10:25PM (#8844)

      Nah, don't bother.

      One, this day and age, everything but the kitchen sink has a .pdf reader built in, or plug-ins.

      Second, anyone who cares, already uses anything but Adobe Reader to view online .pdf's.

      And third, if they can't be bothered to pay attention to what they are clicking on, then they deserve worse than a .pdf inflicted on them.(remember goatse? I wish I could forget, but I learned!)

      Parent

  • Re:If we are going to try to be better(Score: 2, Funny) by skullz on Friday February 28 2014, @09:08PM

    by skullz (2532) on Friday February 28 2014, @09:08PM (#8779)

    Nice typesetting too. I wonder if one could download the LaTeX style page for that?

    NEEEERRRD!

    But yeah, it does look pretty nice.

    Parent