worrisome shit

[rone]

So is the decision in US v. Kelly Gould a stomping on the 4th Amendment? It seems to me that the officers behaved correctly in that case, but should that sort of assumption be made by default?

I'm trying to look for more information on this, but it seems very sparse or very partisan.

Comments

[samantha2074.livejournal.com]

It's hard to tell from a short article, but I don't see why the officers couldn't have gotten a search warrant since they'd been notified of a threat and the person in question had a prior record.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

That thought occurred to me as well. I wish more information were available.

[omarius.livejournal.com]

I think this paragraph is telling:

When officers went to question Gould, they were told he was asleep. The officers asked if they could look inside for Gould, and were allowed to enter.

I'm not sure who did the telling and allowing (insert rant about passive voice in journalism here), but assuming it was someone with authority to grant such permission, there's probably no violation here.

What I don't understand from the article is how that turns into "a new search power." If it's something that didn't violate any rights (i.e., it would have been allowable yesterday, today, and the day after tomorrow), then how is that something new?

The article makes it sound like the cops can go busting down doors now.

BTW, the gray-on-gray text on your comments box is pretty hard to see/read.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i see what you mean about the comments box. Didn't use to be like that... i'm gonna have to redo my style. Beh.

The article should definitely say "they were told [BY A CERTAIN PERSON] he was asleep. The officers asked [A CERTAIN PERSON] if they could look inside for Gould, and [A CERTAIN PERSON] allowed them to enter." It seems like a crucial detail.

The article seems to be saying that this sets a precedent that allows cops to enter a household whenever they feel that they are being threatened, but i'm not sure that what i read supports that.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

The story doesn't make sense.

-Who- let the cops in to search for Gould?

If it was the houseowner this was irrelevant, as this invalidates a need for a warrant.

And if Gould was suspected of making those violent threats, why didn't they just get the damned warrent in the first place?

[dreamcarnival.livejournal.com]

If you click in the article to the link to the case (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/5th/0230629cr0p.pdf) you can get the details, but the main version of the case (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/5th/0230629cv0p.pdf) is 63 pages long. The person who let the person in was just a friend, Dennis Cabral, who also lived in the trailer home, evidently, who had "no actual or apparent authority to authorize a search of the bedroom." I think they should have gone and gotten the warrant also. I haven't had time to plough through the 63 page long version of the case but eventually I will. Footnote 1 from the 20-page case: "1The district court–without appellate challenge–found that “the officers’ initial entry into the mobile home was legal, because they had the voluntary consent of a resident. However, Mr. Cabral had neither actual nor apparent authority to consent to the search of the master bedroom.” We do not interpret the district court’s ruling as including a finding that the presence of the officers, when they initially observed that defendant was not in bed, was in violation of defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights."