[Cali Coug]

This is actually a pretty funny quote from Justice Stevens, filed in a concurring opinion to a unanimous decision in Brigham City v. Stuart...

This is an odd flyspeck of a case. The charges that have been pending against respondents for the past six years are minor offenses-intoxication, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and disorderly conduct-two of which could have been proved by evidence that was gathered by the responding officers before they entered the home. The maximum punishment for these crimes ranges between 90 days and 6 months in jail. And the Court’s unanimous opinion restating well-settled rules of federal law is so clearly persuasive that it is hard to imagine the outcome was ever in doubt.

Under these circumstances, the only difficult question is which of the following is the most peculiar: (1) that the Utah trial judge, the intermediate state appellate court, and the Utah Supreme Court all found a Fourth Amendment violation on these facts; (2) that the prosecution chose to pursue this matter all the way to the United States Supreme Court; or (3) that this Court voted to grant the petition for a writ of certiorari."


OUCH!