Judges don’t sign warrants because there might be evidence,
Lord, yes they do. Judges will sign anything you put in front of them, honestly.
they sign warrants because the police are sure the evidence is going to be there, else they’re wasting time, effort, and resources in searching when it may not be there. Search warrants include what evidence the police expect to find.
"sure" is distinctly inaccurate. "strongly suspect" would be better. Remember, the police were ostensibly told that evidence would be there, and probably had a vague idea what that evidence would be, although I will note that specifications of evidence like "all proceeds of drug-related activities" or whatever aren't uncommon, for which see above re: judges.
In this particular instance, the warrant was no knock, a type of warrant issued when, among other things, there is the risk of evidence being destroyed if they announce their presence (presumably because that’s what the police said would happen) but the folks executing the warrant were told to announce themselves anyway, suggesting they didn’t need to worry about that because they had enough already.
I'm not convinced it suggests that, it could have suggested other things such as "they did not think the inhabitants would have been able to destroy any evidence in this situation", or who knows what asinine thought process could have been involved. The important part I want to pick out here, though, is "they had enough already". Like I said before, "the law is entitled to
every man's evidence" — they may have had "enough" to, say, arrest and charge the guy, but you always want more. For example, maybe they wanted to pursue additional charges, or maybe they just wanted to make a bigger pile to show the jury.
Further, if they were so worried that Taylor was involved in some capacity with Glover’s dealings, and were not sure if they would find anything, she’s then free to destroy other evidence if they can’t arrest her for anything. The change to them having to announce themselves means they weren’t worried about, as does the fact she wasn’t named on the warrant.
Again, neither of those things really show that they weren't worried about it
in the abstract. Yes, I mentioned before that it was a pretty dumb plan.
For somebody who is apparently so protective of their own rights, you’re setting the bar for allowing the police to search property awfully low. Taylor knew Glover so it’s okay for them to execute a no knock warrant on her property at 1am to search for someone else’s drugs? Come on, man.
I thought I was clear before that I hate this? I don't want the police to be allowed to enter private property without the homeowner's consent
at all. Nevertheless, I didn't draft the Constitution. Trust me, it'd be a lot better if I had. As it stands, the bar for allowing the police to search property is "probable cause".
Again, you’re not going to commit operational resources to arrest someone unless you have enough evidence to charge them with something. They wouldn’t be tracking his movements enough to arrest him 10 miles away at the same time they were raiding Taylor’s apartment if they weren’t absolutely sure they could charge him with something, anything, completely unrelated to the search in Taylor’s apartment because if they didn’t find anything (which is exactly what happened) they’ve wasted the resources for two (admittedly small-scale) operations and pissed off whichever judge they fooled into signing the warrants.
This assumes two things: 1) that judges care at all (see above), 2) that police care about wasting resources more than they care about getting as much evidence and pushing through as many charges as possible. Neither is true. The problem here is that you keep saying "enough evidence" like there is really such a thing, when I keep trying to explain that the police want ALL the evidence.
I understand what you’re saying regarding police work, but I think you’re oversimplifying it. Police work happens before the arrest, guys. If the police have committed resources to tracking someone, they’re not just going to arrest them and then hope to find evidence before they make bail or otherwise have to release them,
Ehhh, happens more than you'd think. Granted moreso when they pick the guy up for totally unrelated reasons, unlike this case where he appears to have been targeted, but nobody said the police have to be good at their jobs, you know?
and they’re certainly not going to raid every piece of property of everyone they know in order to find it.
Well, no, because they wouldn't have probable cause. But if someone tipped them off to a particular property, and the tip doesn't actually have to be any good (see above re: judges signing everything), they absolutely would.
I'd like to think that there is more protecting my home and body from having my door busted down at 1AM by men with guns than 'probable cause.'
You'd be wrong, read the 4th amendment again.
Unfortunately, it's most likely that thing keeping me safe is my skin color.
Nah, man, it's your social class. I keep trying to explain this, social class matters waaaaaaay more in America than race. It just happens to correlate somewhat, but the marginal cases all turn on social class more than race. If you knew more rich black people you'd find this obvious like I do.