"There's no crime called refusing to die while a mass murderer is in your school," said Eugene O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer and prosecutor.
When policymakers implement ridiculous rules that get people hurt, LEOs are the ones who have to deal with the consequences.
It’s not the police, it’s the public who are ignorant of the law and need additional civil rights and civil responsibility education.
After Apr. 19, officers and agencies could incur liability for vehicle searches incident to arrest that do not fall within the Gant guidelines.
Although it's common to see the term "stop and frisk," it's possible that there might be justification for a stop, but not for a frisk.
What the exclusionary rule has actually meant in practice is that thousands (maybe millions) of criminals have been able to stop the prosecution from using critical evidence of their guilt to hold them accountable for their crimes.
Much of what I learned in basic academy in the late 1960s is no longer good law. If I were still operating on the basis of 40-year-old understandings, I wouldn't be very effective.
"The first duties of the officers of the law are to prevent, not to punish crime. It is not their duty to incite to and create crime for the sole purpose of prosecuting and punishing it." — U.S. Supreme Court, Sorrells v. U.S.
The general rule-of-thumb is to try to get a warrant whenever possible. On the other hand, if you can seize evidence without engaging in a search, you don't need either a warrant or any exception.
There are four ways to make a lawful entry into a private home. Notice that "entry incident to outdoors arrest" is not on the list of lawful ways to get inside a residence. In three separate cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has held such entries to be unconstitutional.