Osborne Russell
08-17-2006, 02:02 PM
Some good history in the Bush Spy case opinion:
[The fourth] Amendment “. . . was specifically propounded and ratified with the memory of Entick v. Carrington, 95 Eng. Rep. 07 (1765) in mind”, stated Circuit Judge Skelly Wright in Zweibon v. Mitchell, 516 F.2d 594, 618 n.67 (D.C. Circ. 1975) (en banc) (plurality opinion). Justice Douglas, in his concurrence in the Keith case, also noted the significance of Entick in our history,stating:
For it was such excesses as the use of general warrants and the writs
of assistance that led to the ratification of the Fourth Amendment. In
Entick v. Carrington (citation omitted), decided in 1765, one finds a
striking parallel to the executive warrants utilized here. The
Secretary of State had issued general executive warrants to his
messengers authorizing them to roam about and to seize libelous
material and libellants of the sovereign. Entick, a critic of the Crown,
was the victim of one such general search during which his seditious
publications were impounded. He brought a successful damage
action for trespass against the messengers. The verdict was sustained
on appeal. Lord Camden wrote that if such sweeping tactics were
validated, then the secret cabinets and bureaus of every subject in this kingdom will be thrown open to the search and inspection of a
messenger, whenever the secretary of state shall think fit to charge,
or even to suspect, a person to be the author, printer, or publisher of
a seditious libel.’ (citation omitted) In a related and similar
proceeding, Huckle v. Money (citation omitted), the same judge who
presided over Entick’s appeal held for another victim of the same
despotic practice, saying ‘(t)o enter a man’s house by virtue of a
nameless warrant, in order to procure evidence, is worse than the
Spanish Inquisition . . .’
[The fourth] Amendment “. . . was specifically propounded and ratified with the memory of Entick v. Carrington, 95 Eng. Rep. 07 (1765) in mind”, stated Circuit Judge Skelly Wright in Zweibon v. Mitchell, 516 F.2d 594, 618 n.67 (D.C. Circ. 1975) (en banc) (plurality opinion). Justice Douglas, in his concurrence in the Keith case, also noted the significance of Entick in our history,stating:
For it was such excesses as the use of general warrants and the writs
of assistance that led to the ratification of the Fourth Amendment. In
Entick v. Carrington (citation omitted), decided in 1765, one finds a
striking parallel to the executive warrants utilized here. The
Secretary of State had issued general executive warrants to his
messengers authorizing them to roam about and to seize libelous
material and libellants of the sovereign. Entick, a critic of the Crown,
was the victim of one such general search during which his seditious
publications were impounded. He brought a successful damage
action for trespass against the messengers. The verdict was sustained
on appeal. Lord Camden wrote that if such sweeping tactics were
validated, then the secret cabinets and bureaus of every subject in this kingdom will be thrown open to the search and inspection of a
messenger, whenever the secretary of state shall think fit to charge,
or even to suspect, a person to be the author, printer, or publisher of
a seditious libel.’ (citation omitted) In a related and similar
proceeding, Huckle v. Money (citation omitted), the same judge who
presided over Entick’s appeal held for another victim of the same
despotic practice, saying ‘(t)o enter a man’s house by virtue of a
nameless warrant, in order to procure evidence, is worse than the
Spanish Inquisition . . .’