The Fourth Amendment provides, in part, that "...no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause." The Supreme Court has issued its (yet another) 8-0
opinion, authored by Justice Scalia in the case of
United States v. Grubbs, overturning the Ninth Circuit
decision. Justice Souter filed a
concurring opinion.
Grubbs deals with the question of anticipatory warrants, and it is the first time that the Court has addressed the practice. It appears that under this ruling, preemptive warrants can issue without existing probable cause, but merely on the supposition that probable cause will exist in the future.
Some legal scholars had
anticipated that at least the
more conservative members of the Court would rule against anticipatory warrants. After all, under
Blackstone's analysis of the common law rule that contributed to the Fourth Amendment, as noted by Professor Orin Kerr in the
NYU Journal of Law and Liberty symposium on the subject, warrants "issue" when they are signed by the judge, and not when the precedent condition occurs. Professor Chris Slobogin
disagrees. Kerr has posted a preliminary
analysis of the decision on his new
blawg. The case has
previously been
discussed by the smart people over at the
Volokh Conspiracy.
posted by Pontius Pilate
on Mar 22, 2006 -
45 comments
Scalia gives divinity school students a peek at what his activism is really about. I can't say it any better than he does so I'll quote: "The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible."
Of course we knew Scalia detested democracy on 12/12/2000 with his decision that infamous day but now he admits favoritism to theocracy.
posted by nofundy
on Jul 10, 2002 -
42 comments
