The one case that turns my stomach

Was the Breona Taylor warrant even legal?

In all but one of the recent cases of death due to alleged police misconduct, the purported victim either died of his own exertions  or placed the police in a position where they had to respond with proportional and sometimes, deadly force.

But in the Breona Taylor case, there is no excuse. And hers is only one of thousands of unlawful searches that lead to death or injury every year.

Virginia doesn’t issue ‘No Knock’ warrants, but they are nonetheless routine under the fig leaf of ‘exigent circumstances’ in which the police blatantly violate Constitutional protections and get away with it due to a rare bad decision authored by Scalia. (Hudson v. Michigan)

Here in Chesapeake, one of these unlawful searches resulted in the death of a policeman and the incarceration of a gentle stoner who just wanted to be left alone.

I wrote an analysis of the case law leading to that and it might be useful to see how we got to this awful breach of our rights on a routine basis.

Neither Reasonable nor Necessary