Editorial: The Supreme Court hits and misses in two criminal cases
On Monday the Supreme Court bolstered the 4th Amendment’s ban on “unreasonable searches and seizures,” ruling that police officers may not enter a home without a warrant and seize property as part of their so-called “community caretaking” role. But in another decision handed down that day, the court was depressingly less protective of the right to a fair trial guaranteed by the 6th Amendment.
In the 4th Amendment case, the court ruled in favor of Edward Caniglia, a Rhode Island man whose guns were confiscated by police who entered his home without a warrant after his wife expressed concern that he might kill himself.
Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said the so-called “community caretaking" exception to the warrant requirement — established in a 1973 decision about the search of an impounded rental car — didn't extend to searches of the home. Thomas noted that the court has said that the “very core” of the 4th Amendment’s protection was “the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.”
Unfortunately, a majority of the court was less sensitive to constitutional rights in another new ruling, this one involving the right to a jury trial.
-more-
https://www.yahoo.com/news/editorial-supreme-court-hits-misses-234509012.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
