Nice re-cap of the "search-of-a-ten-year-old" canard

[dude1394]

So the dems were flabbergasted that a 10 year old was searched in a drug-bust. How could the eeeevvvvvviiiiiilllllll Alito allow that.

Well as this re-cap shows, he was the only judge that had any sense in the matter. Thank goodness another grown-up will be joining the court.

weeklystandard

he Smear that Failed
Judge Alito, when did you stop molesting children?
by William Tucker
01/23/2006, Volume 011, Issue 18

OF ALL THE SMEARS AIMED at Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, perhaps none was more demagogic than the attack on his opinion in a case involving the body search of a 10-year-old girl during a Pennsylvania drug bust. Leading up to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, the Alliance for Justice, a Washington-based group, ran a 30-second TV ad charging that Alito "even voted to approve the strip search of a 10-year-old girl." The case came up repeatedly last week in the questioning of Democratic senators Ted Kennedy and Patrick Leahy.

The case is indeed interesting, but not for the reason Alito's critics think. In fact, it was the two majority judges on the Third Circuit panel who responded to the emotional aspects of the case and tortured the law to reach their desired conclusion.

The incident occurred in a small coal town in Schuylkill County in 1998. Police obtained a warrant to search the home of Michael McGinley, a disbarred lawyer with a history of drug and assault arrests who was believed to be dealing in amphetamines. When four officers arrived at his door, they found his wife and daughter present. Having specifically requested permission to search "all occupants" of the house, they summoned a female officer, who took the mother and daughter to an upstairs bedroom and performed a whole body search, including a pat-down while they were in their underwear. (It was not a "strip-search," as usually reported.) Nothing was found on the women, but police did turn up marijuana and

traces of methamphetamine in the house. McGinley was convicted for drug possession and served a probationary sentence.

He also sued the police for several million dollars for allegedly violating his wife and daughter's constitutional rights, in a case that would become known as Doe v. Groody. (He filed suit as "John Doe," but since McGinley has become a spokesman against Alito's confirmation, it seems fair to include his name here.) In a preliminary hearing, the judge ruled that the officers must stand trial because their conduct violated "clearly established" constitutional rights of the plaintiffs. The officers appealed to the federal Third Circuit.

[Mavdog]

did you know that chertoff wrote the majority opinion?

the opinion wasn't directed to the claim made by doe against the police. the opinion dealt with the claim of immunity by the police to the suit brought by doe.

the completion of the warrant to specifically include others in addition to doe is the question. to be given immunity the police must be acting within the terms of the warrant.

the case has nothing to do with excluding evidence from doe's trial, and the writer of this article surely is aware of that when he introduces that issue. just an attempt to demonize the questioning of the committee IMO.