Ryburn v Huff, 2012 Supreme Court ruled this ok....?

[Curley Red]

Attend an 832 academy, When you are taught that lying is perfectly acceptable behavior in the line of duty...kind of makes it difficult to see LEO as Bastions of truthfulness...

Having grown up around officers and have a good number of friends that are officers, I tend to disagree with you. But that is what is so great about America, we can each have our own opinion.

[BobB35]

Having grown up around officers and have a good number of friends that are officers, I tend to disagree with you. But that is what is so great about America, we can each have our own opinion.

Me too, and from what I have seen those LEO's actions support my position. Most people are completely clueless as to what LEO can and can't do and what they are and are not responsible for....

[htjyang]

What is an "unsigned" decision?

It is an opinion by the Court speaking as a whole. Per curiam opinions are issued this way. They are issued without full argument.

For all of you who agree with this decision, you may want to check what side you are on. A warrant take less than 15 minutes to get in this state so what exactly was the reason for violating the sovereignty of the home? If you don't get it THE POLICE LIE all the time. So from this point forward, the police can just MAKE S*** UP and come into peoples home. Anonymous letter, furtive movements, action that are suspicious, etc. etc. Welcome to the police state, that which we feared has become us.

And people make absurd allegations against the police all the time.

[goldrush]

This ALREADY is in the books. LEOs make such decisions all the time, for instance if they're knocking at a door and smell gas, or see someone or a gun laying on the floor, see a blood splatter on a window... Then they can break in without a warrant. It's codified as exigent circumstance.

Silence and avoidance of the government is exercising a right. Exercising a right can never be an "exigent circumstance."

This decision further heaped ground on America's grave. All who agree with it had a part in killing America.

[Scratch705]

thanks to Librarian for making the changes, since when i was posting it was late (or early depending on how you view it) and the forum was doing some glitchy slow error loadings on me.

[ChuangTzu]

Assuming the cops were scared that someone inside the house might have a gun at the point when Mrs. Huff ran back inside the house, couldn't they just as well have left the scene? It seems that running into a potentially dangerous (by their estimation) home invites extra officer risk, rather than lessons it.

Coupled with the fact that entering always carries risk of constitutional violations while leaving doesn't, why do we give them a pass this time when they had an alternative which served their purposes without any such risk of a constitutional violation?

[zhyla]

Assuming the cops were scared that someone inside the house might have a gun at the point when Mrs. Huff ran back inside the house, couldn't they just as well have left the scene?

I don't think cops are hired to run away from dangerous situations.

There are always going to be situations where a cop can't stop and get a warrant before reacting. Without having read the decision yet I'm guessing that this was a pretty straight forward case for them. Unanimous!

[Harrison_Bergeron]

If you thought someone was gong for a gun in a highly defensible position would your first instinct be to turn your back and walk to your car?

Assuming the cops were scared that someone inside the house might have a gun at the point when Mrs. Huff ran back inside the house, couldn't they just as well have left the scene? It seems that running into a potentially dangerous (by their estimation) home invites extra officer risk, rather than lessons it.

Coupled with the fact that entering always carries risk of constitutional violations while leaving doesn't, why do we give them a pass this time when they had an alternative which served their purposes without any such risk of a constitutional violation?

[Wherryj]

This was not exactly an unjustified search. When the officers asked her if she had guns in the house and she rushed back inside, *I* would have viewed that as a potential threat.

I agree.

Had she just refused to answer the question without a lawyer, asked for a warrant, etc. there would have been no probable cause. Running back inside the house (IF that is really what happened) does seem very suspicious and seems to give probable cause.

[ChuangTzu]

I don't think cops are hired to run away from dangerous situations.

They're not hired to intervene in every potentially dangerous situation either.

[a1c]

Silence and avoidance of the government is exercising a right. Exercising a right can never be an "exigent circumstance."

This decision further heaped ground on America's grave. All who agree with it had a part in killing America.

Dramatic much?

Not every action is the exercise of a right. Next you'll be telling us that police would be unjustified in breaking down a door without any warrant after spotting blood on the walls and hearing cries for help, only to find a performance artist exercising his First Amendment rights.

[ChuangTzu]

I agree.

Had she just refused to answer the question without a lawyer, asked for a warrant, etc. there would have been no probable cause. Running back inside the house (IF that is really what happened) does seem very suspicious and seems to give probable cause.

While I agree that was possibly the worst-looking point of the "conversation" to break off the contact, she certainly had a right to break off contact at any point. We don't know that she "ran" into the house either. She might have politely shut up, turned around, and walked back inside.

Police are nearly always capable of retelling events in a way that seems reasonable according to prior supreme court case law. Unfortunately, I've seen it first-hand. Kafka wasn't very far off. There are good cops and bad cops of course, but although the limitations are written to prevent abuses by the bad cops, the good cops must also abide by them because if there was a foolproof way to tell a good cop from a bad one, there would be no bad cops.

The reason we have constitutional limitations on police power is because we know that if our relationship with police were based on trust alone, rights would be abused outright. This was recognized as the nature of power at the time of the founding and it should be equally recognized today. Every case that gets decided in favor of the police based on intangible indicators of potential criminal activity (the sound of a toilet flushing after a knock, etc.) weakens the systematic protections in favor of a more "trust-based" relationship with police.

Let's say we're neighbors. Someone steals my lawnmower and another neighbor tells me they saw you using it. I come knocking on your front door asking whether you know anything about it. There's no answer so I call you. You answer and say you're inside the house and eventually I talk you into coming out onto your porch. You reluctantly do so and I start asking questions about my lawnmower. You don't answer. Suddenly I ask you if anyone in the house has guns (something which isn't illegal nor inherently dangerous) and you go back inside.

Do I now have a right to pull a weapon (use of deadly force in and of itself) and enter your home? Or have I created a situation which is potentially dangerous to myself but which can be solved by removing myself from said situation?

Let's say there was someone with a gun inside the house when they entered (something which I would expect to see upon entering any random house in America). How would this story have ended differently? Kind of like Jose Ortiz's story?

[Harrison_Bergeron]

^That lawn mower situation is not the same though. The police were at the house to investigate an alleged threat to the school. If the threat was to shoot up the school then asking about guns in the home is 100% logical and proper thing to ask. If the family was well mannered and said that they did not own guns it would be an open and shut, "thank you for your time" situation. If they were well mannered and did own guns the conversation may take a minute longer, but would likely have ended the same way. Instead, the simple rumor that warranted police interaction turned into a long court case that went to the SCOTUS- all because the woman could not act rationally by either answering the questions or lawyering up.

The fact that the officers did not cuff anyone or search anything pretty much kills the idea that they are bad cops lying on the stand, IMO.

[formula502]

This part of the decision jumped out at me...

...the panel majority did not heed the District Court's wise admonition that judges should be cautious about second-guessing a police officer's assessment, made on the scene, of the danger presented by a particular situation.

It reminded me of that woman in NY who ran afoul of local PD last year when videotaping from her front yard.

The officer in that tape was so perfunctory & matter of fact about stating that he "didn't feel safe" before arresting her. It was like he knew those were the magic words.

[markm]

I can't believe what I am reading!

Hello All,

Wow. An anonymous tip leads to police enforcing "police state" rules, and our Supremes go along with it.

Where was the imminent danger to the public?

Where was the imminent danger to police?

Would waiting 15 minutes for a phone warrant change the situation?

After getting a warrant, why not surround and seige the home (turn off water, turn off electricity, provide a lawyer for the seiged, and wait it out)?

Police officers need to be trained to put civil liberties ahead of their safety. All situations don't require an immediate Seal Team Six response. Police officers usually have time on their side. They choose not to use that tactic.

The police that I have dealt with are scum. They are scum because they violated my civil liberties by demanding my ID and detaining me for no apparent reason. They did not like the "cut of my jib." I must have looked at them cross eyed! I was never charged. I was never given an explanation as to the "weapons drawn detention." Literally, wheels screeching, side sliding cruisers, and mulitple weapons drawn. All for leaving a jobsite after a hard days work.

Not once, but three times this has happened to me (guns drawn was one time).

Cops are lying scum.

I am not a law breaker. I am not a knuckle-head. I now know why blacks revolted in the 60s; they were justified.

On other occasions, police officers who I sought out to ask questions of, ended up lying to me. Or, they were ignorant of the law and assumed they had more authority than they do.

No, this was not a good decision for our US Constitutionally gauranteed rights.

markm