Rhetorical Analysis

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The Fourth Amendment Diluted

With a lamentable 5-to-4 ruling on Wednesday, the Supreme Court carved a new exception to the nearly century-old exclusionary rule, which forbids prosecutors from using evidence obtained by the police as the result of an improper search. The result was a meaningful dilution of Americans’ Fourth Amendment protections and one more instance of the court’s conservative majority upsetting precedent without admitting that it is doing so.

The case centered on the 2004 arrest of Bennie Dean Herring by police officers in Coffee County, Ala., based on a mistaken belief that he was the subject of an outstanding warrant. It turned out that the warrant, although still in the computerized database of a neighboring town, had been withdrawn five months earlier. By the time the error was discovered, officers had stopped Mr. Herring, handcuffed him, searched him and his truck and found methamphetamine and an unloaded pistol.
No one disputed that Mr. Herring’s arrest lacked probable cause and that both the arrest and the search were therefore unconstitutional. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court declined to exclude the seized evidence, and upheld Mr. Herring’s conviction on drug and gun charges. The arrest was based on careless police record-keeping rather intentional misconduct, the court reasoned.
“To trigger the exclusionary rule,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority, “police conduct must be sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it, and sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system.” The decision instructs judges to use a sliding scale to decide whether police misconduct warrants suppressing evidence.
That may seem reasonable, but it ignores both the inadequacy in the real world of using a cost-benefit calculus to deter unconstitutional law enforcement conduct, and the harm of involving the courts in trampling on people’s rights by admitting the fruits of an unconstitutional search. The decision also overlooks the importance of preserving a strong incentive for maintaining accurate, up-to-date records in an era of increased law-enforcement reliance on coordinated computer databases. These points were noted by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a thoughtful dissenting opinion.
The outcome was not very surprising. In recent years, the court has carved out several “good faith” exceptions to the exclusionary rule, and justices on the court’s right flank have made no secret of their ambition to carve out more. But until this week, those exceptions were limited to instances when the improper search resulted from nonpolice errors, say by judicial officers or a legislature — not solely from police behavior.
The danger of this ruling is that judges will read its broad reasoning to prevent the exclusion of evidence in cases of negligent police conduct going well beyond sloppy record-keeping.



Analysis



The title of the article is very eye catching as well as compelling. People are instantly frightened anytime the constitution is in question. The author is also instantly given credibility by writing for the New York Times. He also has an expansive vocabulary and seems educated on the topic.



His stance becomes clear in the first sentence when he uses the word "lamentable" in reference to the ruling that created a new exception in the introduction of evidence that was gained without a search warrant. He is very short and concise about the facts of the case, in order to help his point. He explains that the warrant expired and that the police than searched his car finding drugs and a gun. The Supreme Court than decided that the arrest was based on "careless" police records not on foul play. The word careless is important because it is open to interpretation and so vague.



The chief justice ruling that the conduct must be "sufficiently deliberate" in using wrongfully found evidence. The author than uses a good metaphor and compares that to a sliding scale that decides if police misconduct is worth the exclusion of evidence. This shows his feelings that this will lead to problems with interpretation in the future.



The fourth paragraph contains much of his argument. He goes through the points that this decision will lead to poor police record keeping, "tramples peoples rights", and involves the higher court system more than they have to be.



The last sentence of the article is the most powerful. He writes "The danger of this ruling is that judges will read its broad reasoning to prevent the exclusion of evidence in cases of negligent police conduct going well beyond sloppy record-keeping. This is important because he instills fear in the reader and makes them think about the variety of ways this decision could be interpreted. He strongly hints at the fact that police will now be able to use this decision to their advantage and maybe able to blame their misconduct on "bad record-keeping." This could really violate the rights of the accused and evidence that is obtained illegally maybe introduced through this new loophole.



The organization chosen by the author is fitting because he uses a closed form but his thesis is really the last sentence. He gives all the facts and leads up to his main point, which is given in the last sentence.

The author relies on logos mostly and explains the facts of the case and sites reliable sources such as Chief Justice John Roberts and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He also uses pathos when he brings into the fact that the police may use this to bring in illegal evidence. The idea of a crooked police force and the removal of constitutional rights really frightens the general public.