Supreme Court Rules...

[baddog]

....warrantless gun confiscation unconstitutional......9-0

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[tvc184]

1 hour ago, baddog said:

....warrantless gun confiscation unconstitutional......9-0

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That was not the ruling. It really had nothing to do with guns.  Entry into a home without a warrant was unconstitutional.... which has already had unanimous or nearly so rulings.

There are court cases of “community caretaker” which still stands as well as confiscation of almost anything without a warrant. It is location at issue, not the item or seizure. 

[baddog]

11 minutes ago, tvc184 said:

That was not the ruling. It really had nothing to do with guns.  Entry into a home without a warrant was unconstitutional.... which has already had unanimous or nearly so rulings.

There are court cases of “community caretaker” which still stands as well as confiscation of almost anything without a warrant. It is location at issue, not the item or seizure. 

Well gee tvc. I read the article and it was all about guns. So was the title of the article. It even discussed red flag laws which have yet to come before the court.

[SmashMouth]

I believe you’re both right. The illegal confiscation is definitely a by-product. 

[tvc184]

50 minutes ago, baddog said:

Well gee tvc. I read the article and it was all about guns. So was the title of the article. It even discussed red flag laws which have yet to come before the court.

Guns was the reason for the illegal entry but not the reason for the ruling. It could have been anything like a prescription medicine in his name. It was a community caretaker case, not a gun case. It was not a red flag law case  

It was a SCOTUS ruling in Cady in the early 70’s (and other cases such as Brigham City) that ruled that the police did not only look to stop crimes but to “protect” and “serve” without the need to be solving a crime. Let’s say a cop sees a house on fire and runs in and finds a woman unconscious from smoke and he drags her out, saving her life. Illegal? After all, he entered a home without a warrant. Now let’s say that he saw something while saving her life that was a crime. Illegally obtained evidence? I think not. The officer while making a warrantless  entry, saw evidence in a crime but he entered under the community caretaker doctrine.

At question is why the entry was made. In this case the officers didn’t enter to save him but to take his guns from some potential future issue. If that was allowed, the police could seize almost anything at any time and just say it was for your protection in the future. That is nonsense but that is kind of what these officers did.

 In a concurring opinion, Justice Alito said specifically, this case does not address red flag laws which might come before the Court later.

Justice Thomas who wrote the ruling also said that it has been established that the police can enter homes without a warrant as long as exigent circumstances exist to justify it such as in Brigham City v. Stuart. In these cases there is a reasonable belief (like my example of a house fire) of an immediate entry to save someone. In this case today, thee police did not enter to try to save anyone. In fact the man voluntarily went to the hospital to be checked out, ending any exigent circumstances before the police made entry. Actually have they made the entry while he was still there, there was a better chance it it would be seen as lawful  

So I will stick with my statement. This has absolutely nothing to do with guns in itself but an illegal entry without the emergency need to do so. It has nothing to do with red flag laws and the Court ruling actually mentioned that fact.

Anything contrary to that it’s just wishful thinking and political spin. It is like when the police make a traffic stop for speeding and end up shooting and killing the driver. At issue is why the guy was killed such as reaching for a weapon, not that he was speeding earlier. 

[tvc184]

1 hour ago, baddog said:

Well gee tvc. I read the article and it was all about guns. So was the title of the article. It even discussed red flag laws which have yet to come before the court.

I will also note, I think the  article you cited tried to imply that red flag laws were in play in this case. If you read down another paragraph or two they actually cite the  SCOTUS ruling where it says this case does not have anything to do with red flag. Here is a quote from the article you posted...

 “Provisions of red flag laws may be challenged under the Fourth Amendment, and those cases may come before us. Our decision today does not address those issues.”

[baddog]

44 minutes ago, tvc184 said:

I will also note, I think the  article you cited tried to imply that red flag laws were in play in this case. If you read down another paragraph or two they actually cite the  SCOTUS ruling where it says this case does not have anything to do with red flag. Here is a quote from the article you posted...

 “Provisions of red flag laws may be challenged under the Fourth Amendment, and those cases may come before us. Our decision today does not address those issues.”

Did you even read what said?.... no

[tvc184]

2 hours ago, baddog said:

Did you even read what said?.... no

I read every word of the case from SCOTUS and the article. I also read you limited comments. What did I miss? 

[tvc184]

This is one of the no-brainer cases. It really does not set much of a precedent and just reaffirms previous court cases. They do that from time to time to remind the government/police what the rules are.

In this case they changed nothing. They mention in the opinion that the police could still go into a home without a warrant but for many years there has been the requirement of an exigent or emergency circumstance.  In prior court cases they use the explanation that an emergency is way you do not have to have to get a warrant. The police cannot go around the warrant requirement simply by saying it is an emergency. There has to be some kind of backing (usually described as “articulable facts”).

In this case the guy voluntarily submitted himself for an evaluation, the police lied to his wife about what he said and then there was no immediate threat since he was gone.

This again just re-affirmed previous cases. There needs to be an emergency and there must be no time for a warrant. Neither of those things existed in this case. 

like I said, every once in a while the supreme court will basically rule almost identical to a prior case it seems to me more like a reminder. The reminder might be sent to the lower courts because like in this case the lower federal court sided with the police. Sometimes the SCOTUS rulingS say… duhhhh....  circuit court, did you judges read our prior decisions? 

This would not have even made the news had a firearm not been the means by which the police claimed the ability to go into a house without a warrant. SCOTUS Mike issue about 120 decisions per session at most simply do not make the news. This is more like Clickbait. it is interesting but still,.....
 

 

[tvc184]

5 hours ago, SmashMouth said:

I believe you’re both right. The illegal confiscation is definitely a by-product. 

You could view it that way. The real issue in this case was not guns though. The issue that was addressed was the warrantless entry into the home.

The most sacred part of the Fourth Amendment is being secure in your home. These cases start out under the premise that all entries into a home are unlawful without a warrant unless with consent. Then there are exceptions all based on an emergency.  This case in my opinion doesn’t deal with firearms but the entry. Let’s say that they unlawfully entered looking for the handguns but didn’t find them. Once inside they seized illegal drugs that they viewed.  In my opinion it is the exact same case. Nothing changes except what was seized. Had the police seized a pound of cocaine, it would have probably have the exact same outcome. It would not change from a gun case to a drug case.  It was a warrantless entry case under the claim of an emergency. SCOTUS said this was not an emergency. 

About 3 hours before this thread was started, a detective texted me a link to the case and his opinion was, why such a case took so long to get to the Court as it seemed like a clear cut bad entry. My guess is that they might have been waiting on the right case or the trial courts and lower appeals courts were handling it. I have read and teach a few cases where the lower court makes a ruling and then a unanimous or 8-1 SCOTUS slaps them down. Those are kind of like, how stupid can you be? 

One such case was mentioned in this ruling, Brigham City v. Stuart.  In that case the Utah SC ruled against the police.  What did the police witness? A guy getting beat up pretty bad to the point of serious injury or maybe even death.  The police entered to save the guy’s life as they were watching the assault through a glass door.  Utah said, hey you didn’t have a warrant so your warrantless entry into the home was illegal.  SCOTUS then slapped the Utah SC in a unanimous decision saying, what is the heck were you thinking? What were the police going to do, say sorry ma’am but we didn’t have a warrant so we let several guys beat your son to death in front of us.  No, that is a very good example of an exigent circumstance. Just like this case was unanimous for no entry without a warrant, Brigham City was a unanimous case that entry without a warrant was absolutely legal. Time and emergency are the issues. 

So sometimes SCOTUS will take almost a no brainer case just to remind the courts that all searches are not prohibited, only unreasonable ones.  

[baddog]

10 hours ago, tvc184 said:

I read every word of the case from SCOTUS and the article. I also read you limited comments. What did I miss? 

Where I said the red flag laws had no reached the courts. Are we carrying a grudge? 

[SmashMouth]

11 hours ago, tvc184 said:

You could view it that way. The real issue in this case was not guns though. The issue that was addressed was the warrantless entry into the home.

The most sacred part of the Fourth Amendment is being secure in your home. These cases start out under the premise that all entries into a home are unlawful without a warrant unless with consent. Then there are exceptions all based on an emergency.  This case in my opinion doesn’t deal with firearms but the entry. Let’s say that they unlawfully entered looking for the handguns but didn’t find them. Once inside they seized illegal drugs that they viewed.  In my opinion it is the exact same case. Nothing changes except what was seized. Had the police seized a pound of cocaine, it would have probably have the exact same outcome. It would not change from a gun case to a drug case.  It was a warrantless entry case under the claim of an emergency. SCOTUS said this was not an emergency. 

About 3 hours before this thread was started, a detective texted me a link to the case and his opinion was, why such a case took so long to get to the Court as it seemed like a clear cut bad entry. My guess is that they might have been waiting on the right case or the trial courts and lower appeals courts were handling it. I have read and teach a few cases where the lower court makes a ruling and then a unanimous or 8-1 SCOTUS slaps them down. Those are kind of like, how stupid can you be? 

One such case was mentioned in this ruling, Brigham City v. Stuart.  In that case the Utah SC ruled against the police.  What did the police witness? A guy getting beat up pretty bad to the point of serious injury or maybe even death.  The police entered to save the guy’s life as they were watching the assault through a glass door.  Utah said, hey you didn’t have a warrant so your warrantless entry into the home was illegal.  SCOTUS then slapped the Utah SC in a unanimous decision saying, what is the heck were you thinking? What were the police going to do, say sorry ma’am but we didn’t have a warrant so we let several guys beat your son to death in front of us.  No, that is a very good example of an exigent circumstance. Just like this case was unanimous for no entry without a warrant, Brigham City was a unanimous case that entry without a warrant was absolutely legal. Time and emergency are the issues. 

So sometimes SCOTUS will take almost a no brainer case just to remind the courts that all searches are not prohibited, only unreasonable ones.  

All the above is true. I was just being a moderator of peace and goodwill. 

[tvc184]

2 hours ago, baddog said:

Where I said the red flag laws had no reached the courts. Are we carrying a grudge? 

Go back and read my post that you quoted. I did not mention you. I only talked about the article you posted. 

 I said “the article” seemed to imply that red flag laws were in play. It is political spin from the article. The ruling had nothing to do with red flag laws so why did they bring up something that was not a part of this ruling? Again, political spin.

Grudge about what? I have no clue what point you are trying to make.

Anyway, I was addressing the article you posted as disingenuous trying to make it about gun rights. It isn’t. 

[tvc184]

39 minutes ago, SmashMouth said:

All the above is true. I was just being a moderator of peace and goodwill. 

Many (or most) of my responses aren’t directed at the person that I quoted but I use their post to go into a topic. In this case I was trying to explain the reason that SCOTUS arrived at this decision which really wasn’t answering your post.

 

[SmashMouth]

16 minutes ago, tvc184 said:

Anyway, I was addressing the article you posted as disingenuous trying to make it about gun rights. It isn’t.

Yep. They were definitely pushing an agenda. 

[baddog]

 

[tvc184]

7 hours ago, baddog said:

 

This guy started off making bogus claims. Then he went on to make statements that did not exist in the ruling and completely misrepresent authorities of the police.

Again, this is political spin. It absolutely was not a 2A case and had nothing to do with gun rights. In fact, the police could have legally seized the guns in a different manner but 
chose what they incorrectly saw as an easier solution.  Basically you had a couple of officers that lied to the woman to gain entry into the house. According to the SCOTUS ruling, the police told the woman that her husband said they could go in to retrieve the guns. She said okay thinking that her husband had given consent. In fact it was the opposite and he told them NOT to take his guns. 

The officers’ lie tripped up their easy plan. They were stupid. A unanimous Court said so. There is nothing landmark about this decision except to uphold several previous decisions which have said there must be an emergency.  In this case there was no emergency. They guy was in the hospital and his wife was home alone asking for no assistance. Where was any emergency? There wasn’t and that was all this ruling.

This is a quote in the opening paragraph (not buried later in the decision) from the actual decision by Justice Thomas: “The question today is whether Cady’s (prior SCOTUS decision) acknowledgment of these “caretaking” duties creates a standalone doctrine that justifies warrant- less searches and seizures in the home. It does not.”. 
 

Notice that it does not mention firearms. Why? As the quote states, it is about warrantless searches and seizures.... not firearms. ANYTHING seized by the officers in this case would have been thrown out as the entry was unlawful. The police could have seized a Twinkie stolen from a local convenience store and it would have been unlawful. It wouldn’t then be a Twinkie case. The headlines in the spin media wouldn’t proclaim, “Supreme Court rules that Twinkies cannot be seized as the Court upholds pastry rights”. Because... it wouldn’t be about Twinkies but unlawful entry. 

The guy in this video (like the original article in the OP) started off by talking red flag laws  Yet again, this decision doesn’t mention or decide any red flag law. 

Unfortunately this guy on the same side of the aisle as me is either suffering from very little legal knowledge or he is so eaten up with his own rhetoric that he is intentionally making false statements.

Either way......