Stern writes: "The Supreme Court issued an extraordinarily disappointing 5-3
decision on a Fourth Amendment case about police searches. Yet the terrible
ruling came with a bright spot: In a powerful and groundbreaking dissent,
Justice Sonia Sotomayor lambasted the majority for its heartless and
illogical rejection of Fourth Amendment freedoms."
Sonia Sotomayor. (photo: Mark Wilson/Getty)
Justice Sotomayor Slams US Police State in Scathing Dissent
By Mark Joseph Stern, Slate
21 June 16
The Supreme Court issued an extraordinarily disappointing 5-3 decision on
Monday in Utah v. Strieff, a Fourth Amendment case about police searches.
Yet the terrible ruling came with a bright spot: In a powerful and
groundbreaking dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor lambasted the majority for
its heartless and illogical rejection of Fourth Amendment freedoms, invoking
the Justice Department's Ferguson report, echoing Black Lives Matter, and
even citing Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Strieff itself involves a fairly simple question of constitutional law.
Typically, when police illegally stop an individual on the street without
reasonable suspicion, any fruits of that stop-such as the discovery of
illegal drugs-must be suppressed in court, because the stop was
"unreasonable seizure" under the Fourth Amendment. Strieff gave the justices
an opportunity to affirm this constitutional rule. But instead, Justice
Stephen Breyer joined the court's four conservatives to add a huge loophole
to that long-established doctrine. In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas,
the court found that if an officer illegally stops an individual then
discovers an arrest warrant-even for an incredibly minor crime, like a
traffic violation-the stop is legitimized, and any evidence seized can be
used in court. The only restriction is when an officer engages in "flagrant
police misconduct," which the decision declines to define.
Sotomayor, who dominated oral arguments in Strieff, refused to let the
majority get away with this Fourth Amendment diminution without a fight. In
a stunning dissent, Sotomayor explains the startling breadth of the court's
decision. "This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand
your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants-even if
you are doing nothing wrong," Sotomayor writes, in a dissent joined in part
by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "If the officer discovers a warrant for a
fine you forgot to pay, courts will now excuse his illegal stop and will
admit into evidence anything he happens to find by searching you after
arresting you on the warrant."
"Most striking about the Court's opinion," Sotomayor notes "is its
insistence that the event here was 'isolated,' with 'no indication that this
unlawful stop was part of any systemic or recurrent police misconduct.' "
But in truth, "nothing about this case is isolated." Sotomayor then dives
into the widespread police misconduct that has dominated headlines for
several years, focusing on the Department of Justice's Ferguson report to
demonstrate that "outstanding warrants are surprisingly common."
The Department of Justice, Sotomayor writes, "recently reported that in the
town of Ferguson, Missouri, with a population of 21,000, 16,000 people had
outstanding warrants against them." That means 76 percent of Ferguson
residents have, under the court's decision, effectively surrendered their
Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizure. "In the St. Louis
metropolitan area," moreover, "officers 'routinely' stop people-on the
street, at bus stops, or even in court-for no reason other than 'an
officer's desire to check whether the subject had a municipal arrest warrant
pending.' "
But Sotomayor's bravest moment arrives when she announces that, "writing
only for myself, and drawing on my professional experiences, I would add
that unlawful 'stops' have severe consequences much greater than the
inconvenience suggested by the name." (Sotomayor cites previous opinions,
citations that I've excised for clarity.)
This Court has given officers an array of instruments to probe and examine
you. When we condone officers' use of these devices without adequate cause,
we give them reason to target pedestrians in an arbitrary manner. We also
risk treating members of our communities as second-class citizens. Although
many Americans have been stopped for speeding or jaywalking, few may realize
how degrading a stop can be when the officer is looking for more.
The indignity of the stop is not limited to an officer telling you that you
look like a criminal. . If the officer thinks you might be dangerous, he may
then "frisk" you for weapons. This involves more than just a pat down. As
onlookers pass by, the officer may "feel with sensitive fingers every
portion of [your] body. A thorough search [may] be made of [your] arms and
armpits, waistline and back, the groin and area about the testicles, and
entire surface of the legs down to the feet."
The officer's control over you does not end with the stop. If the officer
chooses, he may handcuff you and take you to jail for doing nothing more
than speeding, jaywalking, or "driving [your] pickup truck . . . with [your]
3-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter . . . without [your] seatbelt
fastened." At the jail, he can fingerprint you, swab DNA from the inside of
your mouth, and force you to "shower with a delousing agent" while you "lift
[your] tongue, hold out [your] arms, turn around, and lift [your] genitals."
Even if you are innocent, you will now join the 65 million Americans with an
arrest record and experience the "civil death" of discrimination by
employers, landlords, and whoever else conducts a background check. And, of
course, if you fail to pay bail or appear for court, a judge will issue a
warrant to render you "arrestable on sight" in the future.
"It is no secret that people of color are disproportionate victims of this
type of scrutiny," Sotomayor continues, citing Michelle Alexander's The New
Jim Crow and Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me:
For generations, black and brown parents have given their children "the
talk"- instructing them never to run down the street; always keep your hands
where they can be seen; do not even think of talking back to a stranger-all
out of fear of how an officer with a gun will react to them.
Finally, Sotomayor builds to her jaw-dropping peroration:
By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this
case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer
can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject
to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies
that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral
state, just waiting to be cataloged.
We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by
police are "isolated." They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths,
civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere. They
are the ones who recognize that unlawful police stops corrode all our civil
liberties and threaten all our lives. Until their voices matter too, our
justice system will continue to be anything but.
Sotomayor's dissent is not just an effective rebuttal to the Strieff
majority (though it surely is that). It is also a brutal and necessary
indictment of an increasingly conservative court's repudiation of the
Constitution's most important safeguards against police misconduct-and a
reminder that this weakening of Fourth Amendment freedoms has especially
dire consequences for America's minority and low-income communities. In the
history of the United States Supreme Court, no justice has mixed personal
empathy, professional wisdom, and legal acumen as brilliantly as Sonia
Sotomayor just did. It's too bad her atomic bomb of an opinion had to come
in the form of a dissent to such an awful ruling.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Sonia Sotomayor. (photo: Mark Wilson/Getty)
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/06/20/sonia_sotomayor_dissent_in
_utah_v_strieff_takes_on_police_misconduct.htmlhttp://www.slate.com/blogs/th
e_slatest/2016/06/20/sonia_sotomayor_dissent_in_utah_v_strieff_takes_on_poli
ce_misconduct.html
Justice Sotomayor Slams US Police State in Scathing Dissent
By Mark Joseph Stern, Slate
21 June 16
he Supreme Court issued an extraordinarily disappointing 5-3 decision on
Monday in Utah v. Strieff, a Fourth Amendment case about police searches.
Yet the terrible ruling came with a bright spot: In a powerful and
groundbreaking dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor lambasted the majority for
its heartless and illogical rejection of Fourth Amendment freedoms, invoking
the Justice Department's Ferguson report, echoing Black Lives Matter, and
even citing Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Strieff itself involves a fairly simple question of constitutional law.
Typically, when police illegally stop an individual on the street without
reasonable suspicion, any fruits of that stop-such as the discovery of
illegal drugs-must be suppressed in court, because the stop was
"unreasonable seizure" under the Fourth Amendment. Strieff gave the justices
an opportunity to affirm this constitutional rule. But instead, Justice
Stephen Breyer joined the court's four conservatives to add a huge loophole
to that long-established doctrine. In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas,
the court found that if an officer illegally stops an individual then
discovers an arrest warrant-even for an incredibly minor crime, like a
traffic violation-the stop is legitimized, and any evidence seized can be
used in court. The only restriction is when an officer engages in "flagrant
police misconduct," which the decision declines to define.
Sotomayor, who dominated oral arguments in Strieff, refused to let the
majority get away with this Fourth Amendment diminution without a fight. In
a stunning dissent, Sotomayor explains the startling breadth of the court's
decision. "This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand
your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants-even if
you are doing nothing wrong," Sotomayor writes, in a dissent joined in part
by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "If the officer discovers a warrant for a
fine you forgot to pay, courts will now excuse his illegal stop and will
admit into evidence anything he happens to find by searching you after
arresting you on the warrant."
"Most striking about the Court's opinion," Sotomayor notes "is its
insistence that the event here was 'isolated,' with 'no indication that this
unlawful stop was part of any systemic or recurrent police misconduct.' "
But in truth, "nothing about this case is isolated." Sotomayor then dives
into the widespread police misconduct that has dominated headlines for
several years, focusing on the Department of Justice's Ferguson report to
demonstrate that "outstanding warrants are surprisingly common."
The Department of Justice, Sotomayor writes, "recently reported that in the
town of Ferguson, Missouri, with a population of 21,000, 16,000 people had
outstanding warrants against them." That means 76 percent of Ferguson
residents have, under the court's decision, effectively surrendered their
Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizure. "In the St. Louis
metropolitan area," moreover, "officers 'routinely' stop people-on the
street, at bus stops, or even in court-for no reason other than 'an
officer's desire to check whether the subject had a municipal arrest warrant
pending.' "
But Sotomayor's bravest moment arrives when she announces that, "writing
only for myself, and drawing on my professional experiences, I would add
that unlawful 'stops' have severe consequences much greater than the
inconvenience suggested by the name." (Sotomayor cites previous opinions,
citations that I've excised for clarity.)
This Court has given officers an array of instruments to probe and examine
you. When we condone officers' use of these devices without adequate cause,
we give them reason to target pedestrians in an arbitrary manner. We also
risk treating members of our communities as second-class citizens. Although
many Americans have been stopped for speeding or jaywalking, few may realize
how degrading a stop can be when the officer is looking for more.
The indignity of the stop is not limited to an officer telling you that you
look like a criminal. . If the officer thinks you might be dangerous, he may
then "frisk" you for weapons. This involves more than just a pat down. As
onlookers pass by, the officer may "feel with sensitive fingers every
portion of [your] body. A thorough search [may] be made of [your] arms and
armpits, waistline and back, the groin and area about the testicles, and
entire surface of the legs down to the feet."
The officer's control over you does not end with the stop. If the officer
chooses, he may handcuff you and take you to jail for doing nothing more
than speeding, jaywalking, or "driving [your] pickup truck . . . with [your]
3-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter . . . without [your] seatbelt
fastened." At the jail, he can fingerprint you, swab DNA from the inside of
your mouth, and force you to "shower with a delousing agent" while you "lift
[your] tongue, hold out [your] arms, turn around, and lift [your] genitals."
Even if you are innocent, you will now join the 65 million Americans with an
arrest record and experience the "civil death" of discrimination by
employers, landlords, and whoever else conducts a background check. And, of
course, if you fail to pay bail or appear for court, a judge will issue a
warrant to render you "arrestable on sight" in the future.
"It is no secret that people of color are disproportionate victims of this
type of scrutiny," Sotomayor continues, citing Michelle Alexander's The New
Jim Crow and Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between the World and Me:
For generations, black and brown parents have given their children "the
talk"- instructing them never to run down the street; always keep your hands
where they can be seen; do not even think of talking back to a stranger-all
out of fear of how an officer with a gun will react to them.
Finally, Sotomayor builds to her jaw-dropping peroration:
By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this
case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer
can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject
to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies
that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral
state, just waiting to be cataloged.
We must not pretend that the countless people who are routinely targeted by
police are "isolated." They are the canaries in the coal mine whose deaths,
civil and literal, warn us that no one can breathe in this atmosphere. They
are the ones who recognize that unlawful police stops corrode all our civil
liberties and threaten all our lives. Until their voices matter too, our
justice system will continue to be anything but.
Sotomayor's dissent is not just an effective rebuttal to the Strieff
majority (though it surely is that). It is also a brutal and necessary
indictment of an increasingly conservative court's repudiation of the
Constitution's most important safeguards against police misconduct-and a
reminder that this weakening of Fourth Amendment freedoms has especially
dire consequences for America's minority and low-income communities. In the
history of the United States Supreme Court, no justice has mixed personal
empathy, professional wisdom, and legal acumen as brilliantly as Sonia
Sotomayor just did. It's too bad her atomic bomb of an opinion had to come
in the form of a dissent to such an awful ruling.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
