The most disturbing thing for me about the wiki article is the part where an appeals court reversed the 4th Amendment claim on the grounds that Mayfield didn't have standing. As in, a citizen who was jailed unjustly due to an ill-considered, unconstitutional law, doesn't have standing to challenge that law. What a shithole this place has become.
In order to have standing, one must prove that a favorable ruling would provide relief. Mayfield wanted information kept by the government from house searches to be destroyed, and the gov't argued that even if the FISA ammendments and PATRIOT act provisions were declared unconstitutional, that this information could still be kept.
Two arguments are pointed out:
>a Fourth Amendment violation occurs at the moment of the illegal search or seizure, and that the subsequent use of the evidence obtained does not per se violate the Constitution
>the Fourth Amendment does not provide a retroactive remedy for illegal conduct
The first point is based off of this case(http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/criminal-procedure/crimin...)... it basically says that the notion of illegal evidence only exists in a criminal court setting. In the case mentioned (concerning parole hearings, which are administrative hearings), this evidence can still be admitted. The argument can then continue that the gov't can hold onto the information, they just are not allowed to present it in court (supposedly).
I am not sure of this interpretation, but that was the argument.
Thanks for the explanation, but I'm sure you can understand how one might be disappointed in caselaw that completely vitiates a basic tenet of the Bill of Rights. I mean, if there is no remedy for a violation, why does any asshole cop ever bother with the Miranda warning?
