'Kentucky v. King': But Shouldn't Stupid People be a Protected Class?
Things are being kind of crazy up in the Supreme Court right now! One thing that is happening is that there is a question before the Court of whether, basically, cops can bang loudly on your door and then decide they hear you flushing drugs and then come on in and arrest you. (Which, I'm thinking: no, not really!) So we have these notable moments on the floor, such as: "I don't know if crack cocaine smells or not," says Justice Sotomayor. BREAKING: NEW JUSTICE TOO HIGH TO REMEMBER WHAT CRACK SMELLS LIKE. And then there's everyone's pal, Justice Scalia, who comes in with this doozy. His point is that cops get to make legal arrests when people consent to searches because they're too dumb to say no, and that's a great thing! Oh yes: "The problem I have is there are a lot of constraints on—on law enforcement, and the one thing that—that it has going for it is that criminals are stupid."
I'm sure cops would never abuse __________.
Justice Scalia went on to point out that there's no mention of drugs in the Fourth Amendment, so the police should be able to search for them under any and all circumstances.
What concerns me about this is I can't tell if it's just well formed topical wit, or, you know, true.
Scalia should know. He made his entire career out of that one thing in people he had going for him.