A RARE UNANIMOUS U. S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Issues A Very Important Fourth Amendment Decision.

The U. S. Supreme Court has just issued a very important case in the realm of the U. S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence.

In the case of Virginia V. Moore, 06-1082 (2008), the Court held that "The police did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they made an arrest that was based on probable cause but prohibited by state law, or when they performed a search incident to the arrest."

According to the opinion by Justice Scalia found that "the Fourth Amendment was [never] intended to incorporate [state] statutes, ... [but rather] on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests."

Finding that "an arrest based on probable cause serves interests that justify seizure", the Court went on to conclude that "While States are free to require their officers to engage in nuanced determinations of the need for arrest as a matter of their own law, the Fourth Amendment should reflect administrable bright-line rules. Incorporating state arrest rules into the Constitution would make Fourth Amendment protections as complex as the underlying state law, and variable from place to place
and time to time."

I could NOT AGREE MORE with the Court on this one.

The ONLY proper Constitutional inquiry should be whether PROBABLE CAUSE existed for the initial stop and subsequent seizure (arrest). If it did EXIST, then the search INCIDENT TO THAT ARREST MUST be CONCLUDED, as a matter of law, to be REASON able!