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This nation's founders were so concerned about the overreach of law enforcement that they enshrined in the Constitution a protection for citizens. The police couldn't just invade your space cavalierly or without a warrant. The people were not to be subjected to "unreasonable searches and seizures."

But in the 20th Century, this country came up with a regrettable idea called the Drug War, and had to make a choice. Do we maintain the integrity of the Fourth Amendment, or do we fight this unnecessary and unwinnable war? You know the answer. We've decided to fight. Bye, Fourth Amendment.

Radley Balko, the author of "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces" says in a blog post at The Washington Post that the Fourth Amendment has little meaning in the era of the Drug War. In a way, he writes, the colonists who complained about the aggressive law enforcement practices of England, had more protections than today's American citizen.

"For example," the Balko writes, "British soldiers could serve warrants only during the day. And they were always required to knock, announce themselves, announce their purpose and give the resident time and opportunity to come to the door to let them in peacefully. This was all in observance of the Castle Doctrine, or the idea that the home should be a place of peace and sanctuary, and that it should be violated only in the most extreme circumstances.

"Today, of course, authorities can break into homes without knocking. They can conduct raids at night.... [I]f the Fourth Amendment is due to the Founders' offense atBritish soldiers forcibly entering homes in daylight hours after knocking and announcing to search for contraband, it seems safe to say that the Founders would be appalled by the fact that today, dozens of times each day, heavily armed government officials break into homes, often at night,without first knocking and announcing, in order to conduct searches for contraband."

Balko is appropriately incensed at a 2-1 Fourth Circuit ruling this month that overturns a jury award of $250,000 to the survivors of Andrew Cornish. He was shot and killed in May 2005 after a SWAT team from the Cambridge, Md., police force barged into his house at 4:30 a.m. without knocking. An anonymous tipster had reported "drug activity" at the apartment where Cornish lived, and investigators had secured a warrant after digging through the trash outdoors and finding two plastic bags with marijuana residue.

At the sound of a break-in, Cornish walked out of his bedroom with a knife. It was still in its sheath. The police shot him in the face and the forehead. In that Fourth Circuit ruling, the two judges writing for the majority say Cornish caused his own death because he should have known that the people who had invaded his house were the police.

"Itis an utterly absurd ruling," Balko writes. "Police don't raid homes at 4:30 a.m, with battering rams in order to let suspects know that they're the police. They raid homes at 4:30 a.m. with battering ramsfor the verypurposeof disorienting and confusing suspects so that they can take them by surprise. You can't simultaneously argue that confusing and disorienting a suspect is necessary to protect the safety of police officers,and that the same suspect you're trying to confuse and disorient should be able to wake from a sleep, process what's going on around him, immediately discern that the armed men who have just broken into his home are police serving a warrant and not criminals there to do him harm, and that should he make an error in judgment, he alone is responsible for the consequences-- whether it's the end of his own life, or his killing, or the injuring of one of the police officers."

You can't? So how come that's what the Fourth Circuit ruled?

Cornish wasn't some high-powered king pin. Police found a "small amount of marijuana" in his apartment, which suggests that maybe he liked to smoke a little weed. Was it necessary for the police to break into his house for small amounts of marijuana? Would it even have been right if they had found larger amounts of the drug?

Read the original here:
Our Fourth Amendment rights have been eroded by Drug War: Jarvis DeBerry