Alito favors Police right to strip search innocent children

[Sandpiper]

Based only on the fact that they happen to live in the home of a suspected drug dealer.


(Doe v. Groody, 2004):

Judge Alito dissented from a refusal to grant police officers immunity from a civil suit brought by a mother and her 10-year-old daughter who’d each been strip-searched because they lived in the home of a suspected drug dealer. Alito felt the police had behaved reasonably because the warrant led them to conclude that there was probable cause to search everyone in the house for drugs.

Alito offered this justification:

"It is a sad fact that drug dealers sometimes use children to carry out their business and to avoid prosecution"



Samuel Alito: Patriarch and Police State apologist.

[electropop]

1. What is it with Pukes and naked children?

Bunch of sick fucks.

[musette_sf]

3. "We LOOOOOOVE 'The Children'"

"We just want to show you that if we have reason, real or lies, to go after YOU, we will NOT protect YOUR children, because YOU are scum if WE say so. So SHUT THE FVCK UP and DO NOT RESIST OUR FASCISM."

[Nightjock]

2. It's hard to argue against that

If you tell me the Patriot Act is bullshit, I agree whole heartedly..
It sucks, but I think everyone living inside a drug dealers house should be searched. It would be an invitation to dealers to use the children if it wasn't a law.

[Sandpiper]

4. Thankfully the majority didn't agree with you or Alito

He wrote the dissenting opinion.

[readmoreoften]

6. Well, considering they didn't have a warrant for the wife or child...

It's really easy to argue against it.

[Sandpiper]

9. Last I checked, the Fourth Amendment requirements for warrants were

"...and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."


The Constitution says the boys in blue don't get a gratuitous strip search of Mom and Daughter just because they live there.

Judge Alito's "constructionism" isn't that "strict" after all.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. There is a difference between a search and a strip search.

The amount of drugs that could be found in a strip search of a child that would not be found on a simple pat down is so insignificant that it would make no difference in busting the drug dealer. A dealer would have considerably more drugs and money than could be hidden on a child, and if all his money and drugs could be hidden on a child he couldn't have been much of a dealer.

A strip search of the civilians is unwarranted and excessive.

[MidwestTransplant]

8. Give me a break.

How many drugs can you stash on a child anyway. Also, you think they would read court rulings to know that it's a safe zone? How come people routinely let cops search their cars when the could easily say no?

[Sandpiper]

10. Most people have the mistaken belief

That cooperating with the police is beneficial to them.

When in reality, they don't realize that all they're doing is helping the officer collect evidence against them.

[readmoreoften]

5. Just wait. In a few years it'll be body cavity searches of children.

Once privacy and the right to refuse medical treatment are overturned (see pfaw.org for more on this) imagine how much fun they'll have with their sadistic lunacy.

What does these slimy fucks have against the bodily integrity of women and children?

[zbdent]

11. Great - now you have the freepturds typing with one hand

again . . .

[Silverhair]

12. This can backfire on us - big time.

In the facts of the case, there was a search warrant and the search was done by a female on a female.

In many previous cases, drug dealers have been known to hide drugs on a small child, even in a baby's diaper.

If we try to use this, we will be made to look hopelessly naive.

If you create a class of people who are completely immune from search, then the criminals will use those of the immune class that are under their control as hiding places for contraband. That is why even elderly grannies are scanned at airports.

Drug dealer to partner: "Hey, man. Did you hear the news? Cops can't search little kids at all now. It might scare the kid and hurt his feelings. All we gotta do is hide the drugs on little Jimmy and tell the cops to "F* Off".

Terrorist to partner: "Have you read? Older people will not be checked at airports at all now. It is too much of an indignity to the old ones. My grandmother is senile. We can hide the guns on her and take a plane. Then we take guns off her and take over the plane."

Do we really want to go before the American public and appear to be so naive?

Further, this will play into the idea that Democrats are soft on crime.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO TRY TO USE THIS, YOU MUST BE READY TO TELL HOW YOU WOULD DEAL WITH A DRUG DEALER USING A SMALL CHILD TO HIDE THE DRUGS.

[Sandpiper]

13. Again, Alito wrote the dissent on this case

The majority in this case found that the officers actions exceeded the scope of their search warrant, that the wife and child were not named particularly in the warrant, and that the mere presence of the wife and child in the home was not sufficient to justify a strip search of them.

The actions of the police were found to be objectively unreasonable, ergo they were not granted immunity from civil liability.

The fact that the search was done by a female on a female is utterly irrelevant to the point.

The point is that Alito was on the fringe of this case and supportive of police conduct that was held to violate Fourth Amendment.



But, dare we point this out? We might appear hopelessly naive as to the grave danger of babies with WMD in their diapers.


Sarcasm aside though, as I mentioned earlier, the Fourth Amendment states rather plainly that:

"...no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."


Doesn't sound like Judge Alito's "construction" of the Amendment was very "strict."

[Silverhair]

14. This is a discussion about political tactics. I don't support Scalito.

I guess I should have made clear that I agree with fighting him. The disagreement is over methods.

How do you propose to handle the problem of drug dealers hiding drugs on small children. Please don't deny that it exists. There was a case in the 1960's that was in the papers. A drug dealer had put a packet of heroin in a baby's diaper, while still being worn by the baby.

What solution do you offer for that problem?

[Sandpiper]

15. The law insists that Police abide by the well-established principles...

Of probable cause for full body searches, and reasonable suspicion for pat downs. These two doctrines are nothing new, and are known to law enforcement agencies everywhere.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect law enforcement officers to do their homework in obtaining a search warrant, and not get a free pass to violate the Fourth Amendment due to their own oversight.


Judge Alito does not share this view. In his estimation, the police don't need a warrant or even specific facts to justify an extra-constitutional search and seizure. The vaguery that "drug dealers sometimes use children" was good enough for him.

In other words, the ends justify the means, and police should be immune from violating civil liberties.


Sorry, not in my America.

[Silverhair]

16. Now you are arguing technicalities.

Notice the OP, and other posts are concentrating on the fact that a kid was searched. No mention of the precise status of the warrant, except that there was one.

In the real world, it would have been a simple matter for the cops to have held the wife and child on suspicion while they called a judge and got the warrant amended. Or the warrant could have been made out right in the first place.

That puts us back to the original question of whether or not children may be searched at all.

And the tone of all of the posts is outrage that a child was searched.

So we return to the basic question. Are we trying to say that children should never be searched at all?

[High Plains]

18. No, I'm not saying that...

There may be a rare circumstance where given the totality of the facts in a particular case it would be warranted. But not, certainly, just because "a drug dealer might hide his drugs on a kid."

When do you think children should be strip searched by agents of the state? How about if it's your children?

Subjecting anyone--no matter their age--to a strip search is, how can I say it? Highly intrusive, humiliating, demeaning, etc. You might do better to ask about a policy (drug prohibition) that seems to require such hideous activities.

[Silverhair]

19. I agree that the drugs should be legal.

I think that if drugs were made legal, and subjected to modest regulations (For purity mainly)that most of the crime in America would go away. But that is another topic.

However, it is currently illegal. I didn't say that I liked the idea of strip searches of children. I do say that there will be times when it will be necessary. We have to be careful that the public understands that. If we come across as saying that it is never under any conditions an acceptable thing to do, then we shoot ourselves in the foot. And that is the tone that the posts are taking on this subject.

BTW - The requirment for a "pat-down" is very low. The pat down is a search for concealed weapons made necessary for the safety of both the officer and the subject and anybody else that may be around. Usually it is done incident to arrest.

[Sandpiper]

21. So the Fourth Amendment is a technicality to you?

Yeah, damn that pesky Bill of Rights. It's always getting in the way of effective police work.

"Getting off on a technicality" is a right wing catch phrase for when the State wasn't allowed to violate the Constitution to get the bad guy. You know this, yes?

As for subjecting children to strip searches, I find it personally repugnant, and justifiable only under the most compelling of circumstances. "Sometimes drug dealers use children" is nowhere near compelling enough to subject a 10 year old to the humiliation of a strip search...

Unless of course you're Judge Alito.

And as such, the thread title was right on target. Judge Alito did support a strip search of an innocent child.

[Silverhair]

23. The precise application of any law can become a technicality.

Let's get back to the main question. Most of the posts on this thread are taking the tone that a search of a child is NEVER justified. Look at the other posts in this thread. Few of them are making any exceptions, but are wanting children to never be searched. If we try to take that stance with the public, the other side will quickly trot out cases where the drugs, or whatever, were indeed hidden on a child. Such cases do exist and have happened.

To try to argue the technicality of this particular case is going to go over the average person's head, and we still end up sounding the same.

Again, I am not pro Alito. I am discussing tactics and this one will backfire.

[High Plains]

17. This drug dealer wasn't using a child to hide drugs....

Maybe instead we should reframe it. Let the wannabe kiddie cavity-searchers explain the war on drugs is so important to our national security that they are willing to strip search our kids over it.

And forget the "soft on crime." How about "smart on crime?"

[Silverhair]

20. See my post #19.

Smart on Crime? I like that.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.