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November 15, 2006
Judge schools cops
Ninth Circus Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kozinski delivers an uppercut to some Tacoma cops -- and a message to law enforcement reinforcing for the cop on the beat what the Fourth Amendment is all about.
The judge grabs you from the first sentence, and by the time he ends that opening paragraph, you know that things are going to end badly for the Reno 911! wannabes.
The facts are remarkable.
Plaintiff, Susan Frunz, and her two guests were in Frunz’s home in Tacoma, Washington, when police surrounded the house, broke down the back door and entered.
The police had no warrant and had not announced their presence. Frunz first became aware of them when an officer accosted her in the kitchen and pointed his gun, bringing the barrel within two inches of her forehead.
The police ordered or slammed the occupants to the floor and cuffed their hands behind their backs—Frunz for about an hour, until she proved to their satisfaction that she owned the house, at which time they said “never mind” and left.
Koszinski is no ACLU sycophant, and the underlying case, wherein a jury awarded punitive damages for the cops violating the homeowner's civil rights, is outrageous.
The discussion in the Volokh Conspiracy's comment section shifts back and forth between backers of the supression of evidence as a means of discouraging police misconduct, and reformers who favor eliminating that remedy and replacing it with civil actions against the cops.
The best argument in favor of throwing the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine on the compost heap is that it punishes the public by freeing criminals who are guilty of the crimes, while doing little to discourage the police misconduct which it purports to target.
Let those who are innocent of crimes against society bring suit against the cops -- like the plaintiff in this case -- and we'll see justice served, without giving Joe Dirtbag a free get-out-of-jail pass.
The other thing that is noteworthy in the discussion arising from this decision is the obsession lawyers have with format, process, i.e., sweating the small stuff that doesn't matter.
There are at least a dozen comments focusing on the failure of Kozinski to underline the "v." in Frunz v. Tacoma, et. al., as well as complaints that the opinion is too unlawyerly -- too easy to read.
Seriously.
I tell jurors that they get to decide cases because, unlike the attorneys or the judge, they didn't have every last ounce of common sense beaten out of them during law school.
The debate over underlining highlights my point.
I'm with those who say that Kozinski was writing for a particular audience: city attorneys and cops. Word of this decision will quickly spread, and the sixteen-page opinion will be widely posted on bulletin boards in briefing rooms throughout the 9th Circuit.
And you won't have to be a lawyer to understand what the judge is saying.
Posted by Mike Lief at November 15, 2006 08:00 AM
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Comments
Judges just don't get what it means to be a cop. They don't understand what its like to be in a situation where you don't have time to pick up a book and read about what to do because some other egghead judge has taken a month or two to write an "opinion."
I doubt that most of the people who read this website can think of a time when one of their friends had the police come crashing through their door. Such a special moment is usually saved for the criminal element.
You can bash the police all you want but without us, the wolves will eat you and your family whole. If you knew what is truly out there in terms of evil people who will do violence against you or steal the shirt off of your back, you'd back the police every time.
Posted by: Red at November 18, 2006 08:09 AM