Re: Search warrants, was Re: On the LAM--Local Area Mixes (fwd)

[Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>]

At 08:44 PM 1/22/98 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
>> > Are police considered an extension of the judicial or the executive arm of
>> > the government?
>> In theory, executive.  (That way legislative writes laws, executive
>> decides if they want to enforce them, judicial decides if they're legal or
>> not.. )  In theory, of course..
[..]
>Then how, Constitutionaly speaking, do they have get the responsbility to
>search when it is clearly a judicial responsibility (that is where it is
>in the Constitution) 

Going and doing stuff is an Executive Branch function;
enforcing laws is an Executive Branch function.
Issuing the warrant allowing the police to go search or arrest
someone is a judicial function, and is generally done on request
by the police or prosecutors.  In the case of early-60s New York,
of course, it simply wasn't bothered with.  :-)

>and in cases such as Evans -v- Gore the Supreme Court
>has found that the judicial body can't transfer or relinquish it's
>responsibilities even if it *wants* to?
I'm not familiar with the case - got a pointer?

				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
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