At 9:50 PM 02/08/95, Black Unicorn wrote:

As I understand the bill,(Though I didn't know it was up for passge...) this is merely a restatement of the current judicial doctrine which prevents officers acting in good faith from being hindered by an illegally issued warrant. In essence the concept is that the 4th ammendment is intended to deter police misconduct by kicking out evidence gathered illegally. Once a judge issues a warrant, and assuming it is issued illegally, but with no knowledge by the officers who execute the search, there is no longer any deterant value in supressing the evidence and as such it would be "counterproductive" to bar it from presentment.

Right, just what we want to do. Encourage police officers to remain as ignorant as humanly possible about constitutional law and citizens' rights. If the police officers can manage to remain so ignorant of con law that they have absolutely no idea that sometimes they aren't supposed to search citizens' property, appearantly all the evidence they aquire will be admissible in court. Well, I feel safer knowing that we encourage a police force that won't let a little knowledge of the bill of rights interfere with there ability to apprehend drug dealers, terrorists, and pedophiles. But if it's already current practice, it's already current practice. Of course, it would be nice if our legislators took time to write law which _increased_ our rights, or which more strictly defined rights that previous legislation and constitution as interpreted by the courts defined loosely. Instead, we seem to to expect congress to constantly try to get laws by the supreme court that are completely totalitarian, and feel lucky when they merely reinforce preexisting undesirable court decisions. sigh. Jefferson _and_ Hamilton are both spinning in their graves.