The Iowa Supreme Court does away with the Fourth Amendment
One of the defining features of America in the last 60 years is really horrible decisions by judges. At the Supreme Court level, we’ve repeatedly witnessed nine unelected autocrats abandon the Constitution and traditional principles of judicial construction to remake society according to their crazed leftist vision. State court judges don’t have quite the same reach (thank goodness), but they can certainly wreak havoc (look at the judicial war against Trump in NYC, D.C., and Georgia to understand that). Most recently, judges on Iowa’s Supreme Court seemingly have written the Fourth Amendment right out of the Constitution.
One of the most hated British acts in Colonial America was the “general warrant” or “writ of assistance.” A Customs Officer armed with such a warrant or writ could enter any home or business at any time and engage in a generalized and complete search for smuggled goods. He did not need to show that the property owner or occupier was suspected of a specific crime or that there was good reason to believe that the smuggled goods were in the property searched. It was a pure, open-ended fishing expedition.
The Founders’ hatred for the general warrant was what led to our Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
In a free country, where the government is the servant of the people and not its master, it does not have a right to waltz into people’s property “just because.” Even when it carries out its legitimate responsibility to protect all citizens against criminal conduct, the government itself must act in a lawful manner.
Apparently, that concept sneaked past the Supreme Court in Iowa.
According to the Institute for Justice, an organization that exists to limit government abuses of power, Orange County, Iowa, has a law mandating rental inspections without any cause or notice:
to obtain an “administrative warrant” to enter and search any rental property in the city when the tenant refuses entry. Unlike a traditional warrant, which requires probable cause that a violation has occurred, administrative warrants require no proof that any violations or wrongdoing have occurred.
I’m sure that if you were to investigate why such a law exists, there’d be some excellent reason, whether unethical landlords, criminal-rich communities, or something else that endangers the city’s safety and good order. Nevertheless, good reasons do not justify violating people’s explicit constitutional privacy rights—and tenants, as well as owners, have both state and federal rights to be free from unwarranted searches and seizures.
In its press release, the Institution for Justice says that the Iowa Supreme Court never even bothered to consider either the state or the federal constitutions:
In today’s opinion, which did not address the underlying constitutional argument, the Iowa Supreme Court wrote that, “[b]ecause there are situations where the City’s inspection requirement can operate constitutionally, the citizens’ facial challenge fails.” As an example of the program operating in a “constitutional” manner, the court pointed out that the law does not require the inspections to be conducted by a government official, speculating that the government can constitutionally force someone to open their doors for inspection by a “certified third-party” inspector.
“Today’s ruling is incredibly disappointing and threatens the privacy rights of all Iowans,” said IJ Attorney John Wrench. “Orange City insists that it has the authority to forcefully search the homes of our clients and all renters using warrants that are not based on any evidence of a violation. By refusing to address the constitutionality of those searches, today’s decision leaves Iowans without a clear path for challenging the government’s forceful entry of their homes.”
One of the things that the Bible makes very clear is that being a judge calls for wisdom, a principle as true now as it was at the time of the Exodus. (Exodus 18:21.) Another thing that’s clear is that, when it comes to America’s judges, wisdom is in very short supply. I hope that the plaintiffs in this case can petition the United States Supreme Court and that the Supremes get it right.
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