Today the Court held that if you're at a friends house when the police execute a search warrant, they can put you in handcuffs for two or three hours. Muehler v. Mena. I wish I were being sarcastic. But the Court held that the police are not required to let you leave, even if there is no reasonable suspicion that you have committed any crimes. Being in a home being searched is per se justification for being held for three hours in handcuffs. Id. at *5 ("Mena’s detention for the duration of the search was reasonable under Summers because a warrant existed to search 1363 Patricia Avenue and she was an occupant of that address at the time of the search.")
The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit, by the way, as the CA9 had held that such a search was unreasonable. I'm glad we have the Court to protect us from the "activist" Ninth Circuit.
Stop acting like the Courts are always right. Read some history moron. The Courts never believed in the "New Deal"...
Posted by: Damien | March 22, 2005 at 02:06 PM
way over Damiens head on that one..hehehe...this holding by the court is unbelievable...the 9th circuit usually overturned for wacky decisions got it right this time...to bad for all of us the court thought otherwise
Posted by: Frank | March 22, 2005 at 03:00 PM
Frank, people who read this blog for the first time often send me dumb-ass criticisms, though it's understandable that my sarcasm might be lost on new readers. Bloggers tend to assume a personal relationship with regular readers - more so than other periodicals.
E.g., about 1/2 my readers are regular readers. The other 1/2 are random people who come via Google or a link to a post. I don't write for the 1/2 random readers, but rather, for the regular ones. So the random readers miss things the regular readers catch. Which is fine with me.
Anyhow, I'm glad you caught the sarcasm.
Posted by: Mike | March 22, 2005 at 04:33 PM