The U.S. Supreme Court just took a huge chunk out of the 4th Amendment in saying that police can raid homes without a warrant even if "exigent circumstances" are created by the police themselves! If the cops hear any movement on make the claim of an incriminating smell inside your home they will kick down your door, point a gun to your head, and search your house without any probable cause and no warrant! This sets up a dreadful situation which will be abused regularly by law enforcement. It lets them create yet another situation where they may avoid oversight, by creating their own exigent circumstances, then using that as an excuse for avoiding a warrant or required oversight or limitations.
Justice Ginsburg's dissent is compelling. She notes that "Home intrusions, the Court has said, are indeed 'the chief evil against which the Fourth Amendment protects us from." Her dissent points out that exigent circumstances are only supposed to be used in very rare circumstances when getting a warrant is not possible or practical. So it seems positively ridiculous to claim that such a home invasion is acceptable under the 4th Amendment. This is a tragically bad ruling by the Supreme Court that will have massive and deadly consequences. We already have law enforcement pushing the boundaries of individual privacy rights, and now they have even more tools to take that further. Many law abiding citizens will be slain by police in the coming years because of this ruling. One can only hope that a disproportionate number of so-called law enforcement officers will be killed to offset the deplorable and inevitable loss of innocent lives. These victims will be guilty of nothing more than protecting the sanctity of their homes and loved ones during these corrupt and unconstitutional home invasions, perpetrated by the very institutions we pay to protect us.
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