Reply #191: Depends on whose courtroom it's in... [View All]

[DoNotRefill]

"BTW, has it occurred to you that since the Department of Justice and the Attorney General of the state of California propose to use this technology that they are likely to be better informed about their chances of succeeding in court with it than you are likely to be?"

If it's in a California courtroom, it might fly. Out here, it will not. It's not even close.

"The secure, properly administered central database would record a legally required entry that shows that on a given date in a specified place, Joe Blow, who offered satisfactory personal ID, purchased certain ammo at Target that bore a unique ID."

Do I REALLY need to give you a lecture on the chain of evidence, and the unreliability of such a chain of evidence that is established with a minimum wage hourly employee at a "big box" store? Do you know ANYTHING about the NFRTR and how unreliable THAT system has turned out to be, even though it only has 250,000 entries, and the number of entries does not change? You say it's a unique ID. The website says differently, indicating that under NORMAL procedure, anywhere between 20 and 50 identical serial numbered bullets would be produced. You say it's a secure system. Of course, entries into the system will HAVE to be made by hourly "big box" employees at the POS... You say that the record would show that he purchased certain ammo. Of course, that would be predicated upon scanning the serial number of every bullet in the box, not just the master barcode on the box itself, right?

"Joe Blow's car is seen at the scene of the crime where someone is shooting from it and a witness obtains the license number. The police pay Joe a visit and they stop off at the judge to obtain a warrant to search the car."

A car, as I'm sure you know, is not a house. And that's what you're talking about searching here...a house. There's caselaw in California allowing the issuance of a search warrant to search a house based upon an "alert" by a drug-sniffing dog on an automobile. Out there, such things apparently fly. Here, an affidavit for a search warrant based upon those facts and that caselaw is rightly refused.

"Further, even without a search and seizure Joe would be going downtown with the detectives to discuss how ammo he bought killed somebody."

And as soon as Joe's lawyer got involved, those detectives would be unemployed and the municipality that allowed such conduct under the color of law would be facing a hefty judgement for violating his civil rights.

But hey, what do I know?

Edited to remove some details about my employment.