Featherstone testified that he has been involved in hundreds of arrests, about 30%-40% of them involving backpacks or bags, and that “every one of them resulted in a search.”
When prosecutor Zachary Kaplan asked how many of those searches involved a warrant, Featherstone said none that he recalled.
The defense has argued the officers violated Mangione’s constitutional rights against illegal search and seizure because they lacked a warrant when they searched his backpack.
“It must be legal, I do it all the time.” This is not the compelling argument they think it is. Or at least, it wouldn’t be if we actually had the rule of law.
Edit: Also the fourth amendment is protection against unreasonable searches and seizure, not unusual searches and seizure. Just because they do it all the time doesn’t make it actually reasonable.
I’m gonna laugh so fucking hard when the jury nullifies the charge. Or just fully acquits him because the cops were so goddamn stupid and thought they could get away with railroading the whole thing.
AFAIK there’s no difference between acquittal and nullification when it comes to the court record, the only way you’d know it was nullification is if jurors said in interviews afterward that that’s how it went down. If the foreman told the judge “Your honor, we’re nullifying“, that would be the biggest fumble in history.
NY cop set up a recording device, but PA is a two party consent state and they never told Luigi. This is why on TV shows whenever the Feds show up they send the local guy to get them coffee.
What a nice choice they made out of their own sense of fairness and not because the court made them.
How many ways are we going to watch them lose this thing? Get it over with already and let that guy out!
Also, my bedroom can double as a halfway house for Luigi.
This is what happens when you have competent representation. You have tons of legal avenues to make sure the police dotted all their I’s and crossed all their T’s and if they didn’t then you go free. It takes a long time though.
Those really quick hearings and trials that happen every day at the courthouse are usually people with public defenders who at best get to plea down to a lesser charge.
