Supreme Court Reversal: Police DO NOT Need a Warrant to Search Your Home – Hayden’s Note Attached

Kevin Hayden – TruthisTreason.net

Source: Free Thought Project

In another devastating blow to freedom, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police don’t need a warrant to search your property. As long as two occupants disagree about allowing officers to enter, and the resident who refuses access is then arrested, police may enter the residence.

“Instead of adhering to the warrant requirement,” Ginsburg wrote, “today’s decision tells the police they may dodge it, nevermind ample time to secure the approval of a neutral magistrate.” Tuesday’s ruling, she added, “shrinks to petite size our holding in Georgia v. Randolph.”

Hayden’s Note:

It should be noted that this decision does not allow police to enter homes at random. Instead, what it is saying – and reversing from a previous case noted above – is that even if you object to a search, if you are in custody or even being detained, police do not necessarily need a warrant to proceed with a search. This is an extremely slippery slope that will lead to further degradation of the 4th Amendment in the sense that search warrants require a very specific language, describing the person or place to be searched, as well as what police are searching for. 

This decision leaves your entire house open to inspection, whereas a legitimate search warrant might limit the scope of search to, say, the garage, and only in places that a stolen motorcycle may be found, preventing police from opening drawers and cabinets, searching your bathroom, etc.

Georgia v. Randolph was a similar case the Supreme Court addressed in 2006, in which a domestic violence suspect would not allow police to enter his home, though his wife did offer police consent. The police ultimately entered the home. The Court ruled in the case that the man’s refusal while being present in the home should have kept authorities from entering.

“A physically present inhabitant’s express refusal of consent to a police search [of his home] is dispositive as to him, regardless of the consent of a fellow occupant,” the majority ruled in that case.

The majority, led by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., said police need not take the time to get a magistrate’s approval before entering a home in such cases. But dissenters, led by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, warned that the decision would erode protections against warrantless home searches. The court had previously held that such protections were at the “very core” of the 4th Amendment and its ban on unreasonable searches and seizures, reports the LA Times.

According to the AP, Justice Samuel Alito wrote the court’s 6-3 decision holding that an occupant may not object to a search when he is not at home.

“We therefore hold that an occupant who is absent due to a lawful detention or arrest stands in the same shoes as an occupant who is absent for any other reason,” Alito said.
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