Brian Eason reports:
A District Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the city that accused the Clarksville Police Department of conducting an illegal search and seizure during a planned drug bust in 2009.
Police officers broke into a couple’s house in November 2009 while acting on a warrant to arrest a suspected drug dealer. But because the suspect, Garry Eugene Burney, had moved out a month earlier, police instead were breaking into and searching the home of innocent citizens.
Read more on The Leaf Chronicle.
Yeah, weapons get confused, suspects move out, but the courts will forgive the police for these errors. Why not just grant ’em blanket immunity instead of qualified immunity if you’re always going to rationalize away mistakes in their favor? The Fourth Amendment seems pretty clear to me that “no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause….” If the judge found no probable cause to invade the home of the new owners, then the case should not have been dismissed under the PogoWasRight.org “gut doctrine” of law.