Presumed Guilty Quotes

“My thesis is that through most of American history, the Court has usually refused to impose constitutional checks on police or to provide adequate remedies for police misconduct. Instead, it has created a series of legal rules that fail to protect citizens’ constitutional rights and that facilitate and even encourage racist policing.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“Congress also should change the federal civil rights statute, 42 U.S. Code Section 1983, to hold cities liable for the misconduct of their police officers.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“Congress should eliminate absolute immunity for prosecutorial misconduct and for police officers who commit perjury.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“In California v. Hodari D. in 1991, the Court held that a person who is being chased by the police is not considered to be seized until he or she is actually tackled by the officer; chasing the individual does not constitute a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.63 But fifteen states have rejected this idea and said that under their state constitutions, chasing a suspect is sufficient to constitute a seizure and thus requires at least reasonable suspicion.64”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“States can provide more protection of rights under their constitutions than exists under the U.S. Constitution. To take a simple example, the Supreme Court has held that citizens have no First Amendment right to use privately owned shopping centers for speech purposes.57 But the California Supreme Court interpreted the state constitution to create a right in the state to use shopping centers for expression. The Supreme Court upheld this interpretation as permissible.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“In 1977 Justice William Brennan wrote a famous article, published in the Harvard Law Review, that encouraged the use of state constitutions to protect constitutional rights.52 State constitutions, he argued, “are a font of individual liberties.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“Justice Scalia wrote for the Court that former attorney general Ashcroft was protected by qualified immunity because there was no clearly established law that his conduct was unconstitutional.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“In every case since then, without exception, the Court has rejected people’s ability to sue federal officers.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“Federalism should not provide state and local governments with the power to ignore the Constitution in any area, least of all in policing. Rizzo v. Goode, followed a short time later by City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, eliminated the power of federal courts to remedy proven patterns of racist, unconstitutional policing.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“The statute also should make clear that an officer is liable, and qualified immunity is to be denied, if the officer had “fair notice” that the conduct was illegal; there need not be a case on point to deny qualified immunity.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“suspects.85 What legislative reforms of policing are crucial? Five are especially important: (1) expand the liability standards for police officers and the departments that employ them; (2) outlaw particularly dangerous police practices; (3) authorize suits against federal law enforcement officials who violate the Constitution; (4) mandate data collection about policing; and (5) increase transparency as to policing”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“if a state supreme court explicitly says that it is relying on state constitutional law for its decision, and there is no federal issue, the Supreme Court cannot review the state court’s ruling at all.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“In 2018 FBI data revealed that the national clearance rate—the percentage of reported crimes that resulted in arrests by police—for murder was 62.3 percent.37 Aggravated assault and rape had clearance rates of 52.5 percent and 33.4 percent, respectively. For property crimes, the clearance rate was below 20 percent.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“Roberts went even further and said that the exclusionary rule applies only where the value of deterring police misconduct outweighs the costs of releasing a potentially guilty person:”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“Instead, the Court’s conservative majority that already wanted to limit the exclusionary rule issued a sweeping decision that evidence never has to be excluded if the police violate the Fourth Amendment in good faith or through negligence.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“The Court held that the exclusionary rule may be applied only if police intentionally or recklessly violate the Fourth Amendment or only if police department violations with regard to searches and seizures are systemic.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“The issue was whether the exclusionary rule applies when police commit an illegal search based on good faith reliance on erroneous information from another jurisdiction. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the 5–4 majority, held that the exclusionary rule does not apply and that the evidence was properly admitted against Herring.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“when police violate the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for “knock and announce,” the exclusionary rule does not apply.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“ruling that tangible evidence may be used against a criminal defendant, even if the police learned of it only through an interrogation that was done in violation of Miranda. In United States v. Patane in 2004, the Court held that police failure to give a criminal suspect the required Miranda warnings does not require suppression of physical evidence learned as a result of the questioning.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“Berghuis, the Court ruled that the same is true of the right to remain silent. Simply put, a person is not protected by the right to remain silent unless he or she knows to say and actually says something as explicit as “I wish to assert my right to remain silent.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“Because Miranda warnings were deemed a constitutional requirement, Congress could not eliminate them by statute. Therefore Section 3501 was unconstitutional because “Congress may not legislatively supersede our decisions interpreting and applying the Constitution.”5 Why didn’t the conservative majority”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“What had Wardlow done to create “reasonable suspicion”? He was in what the Court said was “an area known for heavy narcotics trafficking.”38 That is another way of saying, it was a predominantly Black neighborhood. And he walked the other direction after seeing police cars.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“he totality of the circumstances,” the officer “had reasonable suspicion to believe that respondent was engaged in illegal activity.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“Not one of these things—driving on a remote road, driving a minivan, not waving at the police officers, or children having their knees up and waving strangely—is evidence of any crime.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“In Navarette v. California in 2014, the Court ruled that an anonymous tip that a person is driving erratically is a sufficient basis for a police stop.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“the Court has reaffirmed that the officers’ subjective motivation is irrelevant in evaluating whether a stop or an arrest is lawful under the Fourth Amendment. As long as the officer can articulate reasonable suspicion for making a stop, even if it had nothing to do with the real reason for the stop, he or she has not violated the Fourth Amendment.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“Once police pull the car over, they can order the driver and the passenger out of the car.19 They can then search the passenger area of the car, including all containers within it.20 This is to protect the officers, the Court explained, to ensure that the car contains no weapon that an individual might reach for.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“In Atwater v. Lago Vista in 2001, the Court held that police did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they arrested a mother, and took her to the stationhouse for booking, for not having her children in seat belts”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“The actual motivation of the officers is irrelevant.18 As long as an officer has probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion, that a traffic law has been violated, he or she may stop the vehicle.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights

“The Court recognized in Whren, as it had to, that “[t]emporary detention of individuals during the stop of an automobile by the police, even if only for a brief period and for a limited purpose, constitutes a ‘seizure’ of ‘persons’” under the Fourth Amendment.16 The Constitution clearly requires, the Court said, that an automobile stop must be reasonable under the circumstances. What makes it reasonable? “[T]he decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred.”
― Erwin Chemerinsky, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights