Two Criminal Cases Produce Odd Court Alignments

[drwex]

(Content warning: the crimes at issue here include violent murder, aggravated rape, and child pornography. If you read the documentation associated with these cases you may read some details of these things. Nothing of that nature appears below this cut-tag.)

Comments

[chienne_folle]

Thanks for those interesting updates!

[sariel_t]

*pebble*

[c1]

You want to read a blistering dissent? PRADO NAVARETTE v. CALIFORNIA, which was yesterday's ruling, holding that the cops can stop and search a vehicle solely based on an anonymous 911 tip. Scalia sided with Kagan, Sotomayor, and Ginsberg in a fiercely worded rebuke of the majority's gutting of the fourth amendment.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-9490_3fb4.pdf

The last section is probably his finest writing ("The Court’s opinion serves up a freedom-destroying cocktail consisting of two parts patent falsity") but his entire dissent is worth reading, if for no other reason than his point-by-point disassembly of the entire house of cards on which the majority's opinion is based.

Yep, that ruling won't be abused...

[drwex]

That's classic Scalia. Good find. I had skimmed the majority opinion but hadn't read the dissent.