Supremes say cops can search even if arrest invalid

The U.S. Supreme Court issued another ruling today that should strike constitutional scholars as utterly bizarre.

In a Portsmouth, Virginia, case, police detectives seized crack cocaine from a motorist after arresting him for driving on a suspended license. The man was sentenced to 3½ years in prison just for possessing the drug.

But it turned out that under Virginia law, police may not arrest a person for driving on a suspended license. All the cops can do is issue a summons, because it's such a minor offense. Because the man should not have been arrested, there was no cause to search him when he was stopped.

Anyone who's brushed up on constitutional law should know that evidence obtained from illegal searches can't be used. That's how the Fourth Amendment is enforced. If authorities know that evidence from invalid searches can't be used to convict someone, then they know they better make damn sure a search is valid before they carry it out. If an arrest isn't valid, the accompanying search isn't either.

But the Supreme Court has essentially gutted this principle. They ruled today that police can perform searches and seizures even in an arrest that turns out to be illegal. Two hundred years of law just went out the window today. This ruling contradicts a Virginia Supreme Court decision that correctly said the police's search was illegal.

Here's some classic Supreme Court doublespeak to munch on: The Justices said the arrest and search were perfectly constitutional while admitting they were illegal. In other words, illegal but legal. So much for a nation of laws.

Not surprisingly, the Bush regime sided with the prosecutors who threw the book at the defendant based on the rogue search.

What's next? Can the police do a full cavity search if you get a parking ticket? According the Supreme Court, apparently so!

(Source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1154ap_scotus_search.html)