There’s a real danger that the Roberts Court might be planning to repeal the exclusionary rule.

I would like to think that this scares you, but I suspect it doesn’t. It should.

For those who don’t understand what this is about: The exclusionary rule is just about the only thing that makes sure the police respect our Fourth Amendment rights. Admittedly, it’s a hard thing to get behind–a rule that says that we must let blatant criminals go free if the only evidence against them was obtained illegally. The rule insures that because police want the bad guys to go to jail, that they will at least pretend to respect 4th Amendment evidence-gathering restrictions.

I think we need to ask what’s more important: that some criminals go free on technicalities, or that the rights of innocent, law-abiding citizens are protected. I don’t know about you, but I’m a lot more afraid of the police than I am of the criminals.

The police have little to no respect for your rights as it is, and this is, I think, the only thing restraining them. When the Lorena, TX Police attempted to search my car back in 2004, I’m sure the only thing that prevented him from doing so was my statement that, “I refuse to consent to any search of my vehicle.” With that statement, since he had a total lack of reasonable suspicion, anything he found searching my car would be inadmissible in court. Knowing this, he had no reason to search my car since finding something wouldn’t really help him. He tried to get a drug dog to sniff my car, but didn’t have any luck with that either. If he were able to have illegally searched my car, I’m sure he would have. I didn’t have anything illegal in the car, and I would not have had any recourse for the invasion of my privacy and the several hours of my time wasted. (Just say no to searches. If you think I’m exaggerating about several hours, you apparently don’t understand what sort of a search you might be consenting to. In many of these searches, cops have literally torn cars apart–removing carpets, door panels, etc looking for drugs. You might have seen this sort of search in progress on the side of the road. Invariably such searches are taking place because some poor law-abiding citizen said, “Sure, you can search my car, I don’t have anything to hide!”)

If you like your civil rights, I think you should have a healthy fear of the conservative court.