But a few minutes later, I stirred and came out of the bedroom to use the bathroom. But how much better it would have been for all of us if I had just remembered to close the front door.

Share this - copied. “Heien is not appealing a brake-light ticket,” the Chief wrote. “[H]e is appealing a cocaine-trafficking conviction as to which there is no asserted mistake of fact or law.”Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote separately to attempt to limit the effect of the decision.

“The question before the Court in Franks was whether a criminal defendant ‘ever ha[s] the right … to challenge the truthfulness of factual statements made in an affidavit supporting the warrant?’ Dr. Barnes has not identified any cases extending Franks to misstatements of law. TheAtlantic.com Copyright (c) 2020 by The Atlantic Monthly Group.

The deputy didn’t give Heien a ticket for having one brake light.

However, the Supreme Court ruled the officer’s ignorance of the law essentially didn’t matter — effectively allowing police around the country the ability to make stops if they ‘reasonably’ believe the cause for the stop is legal. Those of us in the sublunary world, however, traverse streets where fear, not reason, is often the currency.

Federal agents (who aren't lawyers) can't be expected to know the full extent of federal regulations, judge says. As for the “ignorance of the law” argument, the Chief Justice breezily responded, that’s fine.


Dr. Barnes’ attorney argued the longstanding precedent set in should permit the suppression of evidence.

Just so, courts are in business to instruct the state about lines it should not cross.
“But if not, not.” All very well, but I can’t help concluding that If only we all lived in the Chief’s empire of reason, and drove on his celestial streets!

The Court this week passed up a chance to do that.We want to hear what you think about this article.

In an act of genuine good citizenship, the carrier called the police to alert them that there might be a crime in progress at my address.

When Cops Don't Know the Law 02:00. In the “Where the defendant makes a substantial preliminary showing that a false statement knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, was included by the affiant in the warrant affidavit, and if the allegedly false statement is necessary to the finding of probable cause, as incorporated in the Fourth Amendment, requires that a hearing be held at the defendant’s request.”But since that hearing had not been allowed, the invalid warrant and the case were thrown out — the warrant, the court found, had to contain reasonably accurate information.

(Eugene at that time had a serious and violent burglary problem, fueled by rampant meth use.)

Plainly, police can stop and search you despite ignorance of the law. Court Rules Cops Don’t Need to Know the Laws they Enforce — THEIR Ignorance Can Be Used Against YOU. If they had, it would have been terrible for me, but I have no doubt it would have been a “good shoot.”What happened was this: After 24 hours of flight delays, I staggered back into my house in Eugene, Oregon, at about 2:30 am. And I doubt that anyone would have said the police acted unreasonably.I owe my life to a mixture of police professionalism and blind luck.The lessons I draw from this are complex. felt otherwise, saying such errors of law — as pertain to affidavits like search warrants — can be excused for non-lawyers, like administrators and other officials, who draft such items.