Free Thought Project – by Justin Gardner
The Wisconsin Supreme Court just dealt a death blow to the Fourth Amendment, which is supposed to protect a citizen against unreasonable search and seizure. What’s more, the decision was made by a single, newly-appointed judge who was not even present when arguments were made in court.
In a 4-3 decision, the state’s highest court ruled that evidence seized in a person’s private home during a warrantless search can be used against the person under an expanded view of the “community caretaker” clause.
Police went to Charles Matalonis’ house after his brother was found bloodied at a nearby residence. Matalonis, admitting he fought with his brother, let the cops in, where they saw blood in the apartment and some cannabis. They wanted to look inside a locked room, and when Matalonis refused to unlock it, the cops broke in. There they found a cannabis growing setup, whereupon Matalonis was arrested and charged with manufacture of cannabis.
The Court of Appeals had previously ruled this to be an unreasonable search. However, in the majority opinion of the Supreme Court, “Justice Annette Ziegler found that police were not investigating a crime but exercising their “community caretaker” function by checking to make sure no other injured people were in the house.”
This was challenged by three other Justices, who argued that “by the time officers entered the locked room, some 20 minutes or more after they had been in the house, there was little reason to suspect someone else was in the bedroom, but plenty of reason to suspect it might house marijuana.”
If the case had remained deadlocked at 3-3, then the Court of Appeals ruling that the evidence should be suppressed would have stood. But in a move that is without precedent in the U.S. or the Wisconsin Supreme Courts, newly-appointed Justice Rebecca Bradley cast the deciding vote without participating in oral arguments.
“No precedent appears to exist in the United States Supreme Court or in this court for a new justice who did not participate in oral argument to participate in the case without re-argument,” said Justice Shirley Abrahamson.
Bradley was appointed by Governor Scott Walker after Justice Patrick Crooks passed away on Sept. 21, and is now running for election. Bradley had not participated in five earlier cases since her appointment, but decided to chime in on this one. She believed that listening to taped recordings of the arguments, instead of being there in person and involved, was sufficient for her to make the call.
So, an unelected judge appointed by a partisan politician cast a single vote, without being present during arguments, which effectively nullified the Fourth Amendment in that state. Now in Wisconsin, cops can enter a person’s home without a warrant, seize evidence and use it against the person.
The irony is that this attack on the Fourth Amendment is being carried out under the guise of cops being “community caretakers.” In other words, the state presumes that it is doing what’s best for the common good by violating the rights of the individual.
well than.. they better bring bags big enough
This is an outrage, but these outrages are weekly, or daily events now. The Bill of Rights is under constant attack, and I hope a lot of “community caretakers” get their uncaring heads blown off. (because if that DOESN’T happen, they’ll proceed to the next outrage).
“Just put your mark here Rebecca Bradley, I’ll hold the pen for you”, said Wisconsin’s top Crime Boss, weasel-face Scott Walker. “Let’s not do things proper, let’s cheat cause we can get away with it and Wisconsin voters are almost as stupid as those from Tennessee and California.” “Yes. people are stupid, how do you think I got elected?”
They take from the community and don’t care.
That’s a “community caretaker”.
At first I thought it meant it was the creepy dude that works at the funeral home.
Yeah flee, this “community caretaker” crap will stop at my front door. It is an obvious reach around our Bill of Rights.
I guess “community caretaker” means making sure the communism is working.
Fill your house with big, mean dogs. I did. Cops came trolling one day on the pretext of an alarm going off at my home. My alarms weren’t barking and I explained everyone in the neighborhood had dogs for guards, not silly alarms. Cop never came back, but I will never believe his lame alarm story.
“Justice Annette Ziegler found that police were not investigating a crime but exercising their “community caretaker” function by checking to make sure no other injured people were in the house.”
That doesn’t fly, since we already know that pigs are far more interested in inflicting injuries than attending to them.
“Now in Wisconsin, cops can enter a person’s home without a warrant, seize evidence and use it against the person.”
So now they basically don’t even have so much as a piece of paper between them and those bullets anymore.
Paper (warrants) never did trump bullets anyway.