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New from me: The no-knock warrant for Breonna Taylor was illegal. It should never have been authorized.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
Why would a judge sign off on an illegal warrant? We can blame a 2006 Supreme Court decision authored by Antonin Scalia.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
Interesting aside: That 2006 case, Hudson v. Michigan, was a 5-4 decision. Sandra Day O’Connor was expected to vote against the police. But she retired after oral arguments. She was replaced by Samuel Alito, who voted with the police.
This is why cops today can violate the knock-and-announce requirement with impunity.
The cops claim they broke down Taylor’s door because her ex, whom they were investigating for drug trafficking, received two packages at her house.

The contents of those packages: clothes and shoes.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
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Radley Balko
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I keep seeing the allegation that the police who raided Breonna Taylor mistakenly raided the wrong house. This is not true. Her name was on the warrant.

But that makes it quite a bit worse. This was not an innocent mistake. The police *meant* to subject Taylor . . . /1
. . . to dangerous, volatile tactics despite (1) scant evidence against her, (2) the purpose of this raid was to *investigate*, not arrest, and (3) these tactics are *designed* to inflict terror and trauma on people who have yet to even be charged, much less convicted. /2
Cops do make mistakes and raid the wrong house. But the bigger problems here are the frequency with which cops use these tactics in the first place; that they use them on people merely suspected of nonviolent, consensual crimes; and how little evidence they need to do so. /3
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Radley Balko
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Thread: I'm deleting these tweets in favor of this thread, with more explanation. I've now heard from public defenders in two offices who say they've been told they'll be furloughed, and were instructed to file for unemployment. But not all offices are furloughing.
It's being left up to the head of each public defender district. Baton Rouge and New Orleans, for example, are not furloughing any attorneys. Here's what's going on: Last week, the Louisiana Public Defender Board passed a resolution stating that because PD offices . . .
. . . in the state are funded in part with fines and fees from traffic tickets, the COVID-19 shutdown is putting many of the state's public defender districts at risk of insolvency (18 of the 42 districts). See Attached.
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Radley Balko
@radleybalko
While we're canceling things, we should be thinking about misdemeanor courts. They're typically packed. Defendants can spend hours elbow to elbow while waiting for cases to be called.

DAs should consider waiving misdemeanor charges until this passes, especially in hot spots. 1/5
At the very least, postpone misdemeanor court sessions until we know have a better grasp on this. It's nuts to force people to choose between their health and an added fine or bench warrant, especially for alleged offenses that, by definition, aren't comparatively serious. 2/5
People in misdemeanor court are also often those who can't afford lawyers to stand in for them. Which means they're less likely to have access to good health care. 3/5
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