When we look back on the foundation of the legal court system, its purpose and existence, we see that the courts were supposed to protect the people from the government. To protect me and you from the police. To serve as an independent entity to review police and government actions’ compliance with the law. For decades, criminal justice advocates have questioned the courts role in a system designed to protect only the rights of the few, and the privileged class. Other policy analysts through books like Injustices have shed light on the demise of the court system intended to protect the people, into a system to protect the state. Finally, we must pay attention.
In June 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court in Utah v. Streiff held that evidence seized pursuant to an unlawful stop could be used in court because the connection between the unconstitutional police conduct and evidence seized was so remote. So remote? Streiff was detained by a police officer after leaving a house that was subject to surveillance based on an anonymous tip. There was no probable cause that Streiff was involved in any illegal or criminal activity. Streiff should not have been stopped or detained by the police officer. Streiff identification was then run through the police system where there was an arrest warrant for a traffic violation. This was a traffic violation, not a violent crime. Upon physical search, the officer found methamphetamine. Under the exclusionary rule, any evidence obtained pursuant to an unlawful stop is “fruit of the poisonous tree” and cannot be used. This rule puts the person back into the same position they would have been if their rights had not been violated and the police would have abided by the law, like a restoral of constitutional rights.
However, the Court’s rationale dismisses this longstanding case precedent on the exclusionary rule and Fourth Amendment right against search and seizure. The Court bypasses the initial unlawful stop between the police officer and Streiff. The Court states it doesn’t matter whether the police initial conduct was illegal, drugs were found so the ends justify the means. The U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion is attempting to legitimize the illegal conduct by the police. If the conduct is illegal, it is illegal there is no excuse. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed this sentiment in her dissent opinion. “It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged,” said Justice Sotomayor.
“Do not be soothed by the opinion’s technical language: This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants ― even if you are doing nothing wrong . . . The Court today holds that the discovery of a warrant for an unpaid parking ticket will forgive a police officer’s violation of your Fourth Amendment rights.”
In February 2016, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Fields v. City of Philadelphia held that First Amendment protection does not apply when recording the activities of police officers absent “purpose of being critical of the government” at that specific time. To put it another way, a person must unequivocally state that they are filming the police in conformance with their First Amendment right to receive First Amendment protection. Not only is this thinking convoluted, but sounds eerily familiar to the 10 Circuit Decision in EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch (reversed by U.S. Supreme Court) that found Samantha Elauf was required to explicitly state a need for a religious accommodation in employment (federal civil right) even though Abercrombie did not hire Elauf because they would have to provide a religious accommodation to their look policy. Now, the plaintiffs in the Philadelphia case (Amanda Geraci and Richard Fields) were arrested and phone confiscated by police officers for filming police officers’ actions, Fields outside of a party on campus and Geraci as an legal observer recording the police arrest of another protestor. This case is on appeal to the 3 Circuit.
There maybe legal arguments that these cases are distinct and only a narrow holding that should be applied to a particular set of facts. However, the issue is what these cases represent in the fight for human and civil rights. As these federal court decisions by the United States Supreme Court and U.S. District Court of Pennsylvania indicate, courts have lost sight of their purpose to prevent the government/state/law enforcement infringement on the rights of the people. In both these cases the courts seemed to almost exclusively focus on the conduct of civilian, not the state. In both these cases the courts seemed to place a higher burden on the civilian, not the state.
Both these cases also demonstrate a clear intention by the state and law enforcement to avoid the legal system and proper procedures that were set up to protect our rights and enforce due process. In Philadelphia, the police should have obtained a warrant prior to search and seizure the plaintiff’s phone upon satisfying the legal threshold of probable cause. In the Utah case, the police should not have stopped the civilian without probable cause that the civilian had committed a crime or was engaged in the commission of a crime. It is alarming that neither of these case decisions substantively address these issues of abrogation of rights and evasion of the law. But allow the police to act as they wish without accountability. The courts fail to understand that if the police state does not fear being held accountable for their actions by the courts, the court system may become effectively obsolete.