Again, read the post I quoted…carefully.
You could have put this all in one post…
I think most laws, barring the Constitution, and the Constitution of each state, needs to be reviewed and re-voted on every 10 years. Seriously, why do we still have horse and buggy laws? I could see in Amish country but most places don’t need it. Laws made in the 1890’s probably do not apply anymore. If not 10 at least every 20 years.
Pat, I’ve been here since 01’…you have been here a long time as well. If you care about your internet friends as much as you say, you should know I am always cordial with folks here. With a VERY small group of exceptions.
You could have read my original post before you mounted your high horse, and defended something that needed not your defense.
Please chill… I am not on any high horse and if I offended you I apologize it was not my intention…
You didn’t…carry on.
Opening of the SCOTUS opinion, verbatim:
“Syllabus
UTAH v. STRIEFF
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF UTAH
No. 14–1373. Argued February 22, 2016—Decided June 20, 2016
Narcotics detective Douglas Fackrell conducted surveillance on a South
Salt Lake City residence based on an anonymous tip about drug activity.
The number of people he observed making brief visits to the
house over the course of a week made him suspicious that the occupants
were dealing drugs. After observing respondent Edward Strieff
leave the residence, Officer Fackrell detained Strieff at a nearby
parking lot, identifying himself and asking Strieff what he was doing
at the house. He then requested Strieff’s identification and relayed
the information to a police dispatcher, who informed him that Strieff
had an outstanding arrest warrant for a traffic violation. Officer
Fackrell arrested Strieff, searched him, and found methamphetamine
and drug paraphernalia. Strieff moved to suppress the evidence, arguing
that it was derived from an unlawful investigatory stop. The
trial court denied the motion, and the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed.
The Utah Supreme Court reversed, however, and ordered the
evidence suppressed.”
This is the crux of your argument here, and I posit that it is wrong.
The stop would have been legal if the officer had known in advance a) who this man was and b) that he had a warrant out.
Alternatively the stop would likely have been legal had he a) known a man named Strief had a warrant out for him and b) thought the guy looked like Strief enough to ask him for his ID.
Neither of those things was the case.
That’s all well and good, but the idea it was an unlawful stop is a relatively recent one(the “OMG, there goes the Bill of Rights!” reactions were a bit silly). There is little doubt the officer’s actions would have been deemed lawful in the 18th or 19th centuries.
I can’t agree that an officer’s subjective state of mind at the time of a stop takes precedence over fact.
And, again, how would this be fixed? Void the arrest, pay the arrestee for the time he had to spend in jail due to the unlawful arrest, release him, and reactivate the arrest warrant? Unless the discovery of the warrant created a lawful detention, that would seem necessary.
That is silly, we are talking about how the law views the stop today. Not 300 years ago–and I would assume you acknowledge that our state of jurisprudence has evolved since then in many ways, as it is undisputable. Also, I don’t know that it is an easy case to prove that the officer’s actions would be lawful in the 19th century–besides the fact that this wouldn’t even be an issue as a) there were no government issued IDs to citizens then b) there were no laws against meth, heroin, or cocaine then c) warrants weren’t issued for traffic citations then d) the police weren’t militarized then e) citizens likely would have been openly armed and told the cop–had he asked–to go to hell instead of ID himself.
These are all reasons why the comparison to 300 year old police actions are wrongheaded.
“slippery slope”
You do know that the the slippery slope argument is a classic logical fallacy? You need to have a reason you see it growing to bigger things. The fact is if they had ruled that an illegal stop invalided a valid warrant that is a real slippery slope. That ruling flat out would be a get out of jail card if the warrant was for murder and the body was sitting next to him
-That’s certainly possible(I have no idea how likely, as I tend to doubt that people change much over time). I WOULD like to know what happened in Strieff’s case, regarding the request. That is something I have not seen yet. Did the officer ask Strieff to speak with him and then request his ID? Did the officer demand Strieff ID himself? Did Strieff make any effort not to hand over his ID when requested? Did Strieff ask whether he was free to go, or being detained?
Most importantly, as I have asked a few times so far, how would Strieff be “made whole” again following his supposedly-unlawful arrest on a lawfully issued arrest warrant? If the drugs are “fruit of the poisonous tree,” then Strieff’s arrest itself is as well.
The majority of reasoning humans do–and especially politcally oriented–is inductive. Slippery slopes may be used and invoked validly as opposed to fallaciously depending on the establishment of a warrant for the position in question. “Non-fallacious usage acknowledges the possibility of a middle ground between the initial condition and the predicted result, while providing an inductive argument for the probability of that result versus a middle-ground one, usually based on observation of previous comparable circumstances. This form of the argument is prevalent, under the actual name slippery slope, in United States First Amendment case law, for example.” from Wikipedia.
And again “The fallacious sense of “slippery slope” is often used synonymously with continuum fallacy, in that it ignores the possibility of middle ground and assumes a discrete transition from category A to category B. In a non-fallacious sense, including use as a legal principle, a middle-ground possibility is acknowledged, and reasoning is provided for the likelihood of the predicted outcome.”
Um, that’s what I was saying.