Armstrong Economics Blog/Rule of Law Re-Posted Mar 26, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

I get emails from friends in Britain who envy the US, saying if they had the right to have guns, they would be protecting their liberty. The Biden Administration has moved to force everyone to register guns. The next step is to just bust into your house and confiscate them. They are taking these steps in an incremental fashion to disarm America. Their designs are to impose the Great Reset, as we are watching in Europe with outrageous fines if you dare leave the country and 10 years in prison for lying about where you have been. Britain is no longer a free country.

The West is becoming authoritarian, unfortunately, precisely as our computer has been forecasting for years. This is why the government and its surrogates pretending to be real analysts are so intent upon preventing people from ever listening to Socrates. They hate the fact that our computer has been accurately projecting what they would do next simply based upon the economics and past incidents as to how people respond.

Now the Biden Administration is arguing in the U.S. Supreme Court in Caniglia v. Strom that the government should be allowed to enter or bust into your home and confiscate your guns without ever having to get a search warrant. That means that they can come into EVERY home and search for guns. In the meantime, anything else they would find that violates any law will be used to prosecute you. The Biden Administration and attorneys general from nine Democratic-controlled states are now urging the Supreme Court to uphold warrantless gun confiscation. That will effectively eliminate the Fourth Amendment while they are really undermining the Second Amendment. They need to disarm Americans because they know a revolution is coming.

The Supreme Court has already eliminated the Fourth Amendment, which allows the government to openly violate that restraint. In 1984, the United States Supreme Court nullified the Fourth Amendment for political reasons, which does not bode well for the future of the United States.

Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431 (1984), focused on the disappearance of a 10-year-old white girl in Des Moines, Iowa. The defendant, who was black and had mental problems, was arrested and arraigned in Davenport, Iowa. Officers informed the defendant’s attorney that they would drive him back to Des Moines without questioning him, but during the trip one of the officers began a conversation with him that ultimately resulted in his making incriminating statements and directing the officers to the child’s body. A systematic search of the area that was being conducted with the aid of 200 volunteers and had begun before the defendant made his statements was terminated when he guided the officers to the body. The defendant was convicted of the child’s murder, but his conviction was later reversed by the United States Supreme Court in Brewer v. Williams, 430 U.S. 387 (1977), when the Court ruled that an officer had obtained the statements in violation of the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

They put him on trial again, and the state did not offer the defendant’s statements into evidence, nor did it seek to show that the defendant had directed the officers to the child’s body. However, what they admitted into evidence was the condition of her body when it was found, articles and photos of her clothing, and the results of post-mortem medical and chemical tests on the body. The trial court found that the state had proven by a preponderance of the evidence, rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that if the search had not been suspended and the defendant had not led the officers to the victim, her body would have been discovered within a short time in essentially the same condition as it was actually found.

The defendant was convicted again of the murder of the child. However, a federal appellate court later reversed the conviction, which legally it should have been. That court assumed that there was an inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule, and the exception required proof both that (1) officers did not act in bad faith in committing the constitutional violation, and (2) the evidence involving the child’s body would have been discovered absent a constitutional violation. The court then found that the state failed to show that the officers did not act in bad faith (therefore, it was unnecessary for the court to decide the second issue) and reversed the defendant’s conviction.

The United States Supreme Court granted the same case again because it was way too political — a black man killed a 10-year-old white girl. The Supreme Court reversed that ruling, which should have stood. The police should have simply done their job the right way, but they cheated, and that changed the law for everyone.

The Court noted that although its prior case law on the exclusionary rule involved Fourth Amendment violations, the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine as it was known, the court then stated that the prosecution should not be put in a better position than it would have been if no illegality had occurred. Therefore, the prosecution should not be put in a worse position simply because there was some law enforcement error or misconduct. There and then, the Supreme Court held that when challenged evidence has an independent source had it been properly-obtained, that was enough to show probable cause to support a search warrant after setting aside improperly obtained evidence. Therefore, the exclusion of evidence would put the prosecution in a worse position than they would have been in the absence of a violation.

Today that has been so distorted that police just do as they like and claim if they had acted legally, they would have still obtained the evidence. This case was highly political with the press calling for the blood of this black man who killed a 10-year-old white girl. We can see the same fever-pitch rising now with the aid of the Boulder shooting that everyone with any gun should not require a search warrant for they should just act. There were two dissents, and Justice Marshal aptly put it best that the doctrine they created to make sure this black man did not escape punishment because he was guilty “inconsistent with the requirements of the Constitution.” More correct words were never spoken. Allowing no search warrants and for police to just bust down your door and ransack your house, all they have to say is they thought you had a gun. They can then charge you for anything else they might find that they will claim is illegal.

The American legal system was built upon the British Common Law. What was once noble has perished and the historical recognition that proof BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT exists no more. The American law has twisted the principles to ensure the exact opposite of the maxim which Sir William Blackstone articulated that it is far better than 10 guilty escape than one innocent suffers. About 70% of our prisons today are filled with people on conspiracy charges as the prosecutors simply threaten one person to testify against another without proving actual guilt. The law was once intended to protect the innocent, but those days are long gone. Thus we presume an accused person’s guilt today and the press immediately pronounces them guilty using the word “alleged” and never look at the evidence.  There is no innocence until they are proven guilty anymore. If the government charges you, they have a 99% conviction rate with the remainder committing suicide.

The preeminent English jurist William Blackstone and his works were what the framers of the Constitution used to define America. John Adams made similar arguments in defending British soldiers after the Boston Massacre, “[W]e are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished than one innocent person should suffer,” (Alexander Volokh, “n Guilty Men,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 146 (1997) id/p. 176). This principle is also be found in religious texts and in the writings of the American Founders. Benjamin Franklin went further arguing “it is better a hundred guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer.” (Benjamin Franklin, “Letter from Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Vaughn (Mar. 14, 1785),” The Works of Benjamin Franklin 11, ed. John Bigelow (1904)).

In Nix v. Williams, the Supreme Court abandoned this cornerstone of law. When I still read Blackstone’s Commentaries, it not only illustrates the cycle within the law and how every principle of liberty has been undermined to ensure that government power is now supreme, but it brings tears to my eyes to think of how much we have really lost over the course of the past 232 years.

Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England remains to this day one of my most cherished books. It is a stark reminder of the cycle of civilization itself how we evolved from trial by ordeal where it was assumed if you were innocent God would intervene (walking on hot coals or throwing a suspected which into water), to trial by combat (where we duel it out or later hired people to fight to the death in your stead). The rule of law was supposed to be the pinnacle of civilization. Oh, how it has fallen. It now lies on the grown broken like the limbs of a stupendous statue that are no more even recognizable. To ensure that one black man pay for his crime, they changed the law of the nation and eliminated the Fourth Amendment. Now the Biden Administration is asking to even but aside probably cause.

Then in Segura v. the United States, 468 U.S. 796 (1984), the Supreme Court went even further and held that the exclusionary rule reaches not only primary evidence obtained as a direct result of an illegal search or seizure but also evidence later. Effectively, the Supreme Court has already nullified the Fourth Amendment, and the Biden Administration is asking to kill it altogether. The Democrat’s view is there should be no limitation on government whatsoever. I have warned that their goal is to really eliminate the Constitution, precisely as Klaus Schwab proposes that Democracy should be terminated. This is the end goal. They have already eliminated democracy in Europe where the people have no right to vote for the European Commission or who is even the head of the EU. They vote simply for a Parliament that has no power to overrule the Commission or the head of the EU. It is just there for symbolism. They may bash China in public, but behind closed doors, they envy their political structure.

Those who voted for Biden because they hated Trump, I’m sure you never knew this was their real agenda. To search any house without a warrant means they do not have to show you have gun registration. They only need to say what they thought! Nobody will be safe — even those without guns. Those who voted for Biden have driven a stake right through the heart of what was once liberty.