Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Thank you, Johnny Donovan.
I'll tell you, that music does sound different when you're sitting here in this chair from the soggy East Coast branch of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, where there is never a final exam, but we are tested every day.
I am fellow student Paul W. Smith, merely a teaching assistant at this august institution.
Rush is off.
H.R. Kit Carson is off.
But never fear, Mike Maimone is here pressing all the right buttons.
And the one and only, Bo Snertley, is actually here in New York City.
How they got him here to this office rather than down south, I don't know.
I'm sure he's happy.
I am sure he's happy to be here with us as I am happy to be here with you.
Roger Hedgecock guided you nicely into the weekend.
I'll do my best to get you into this new week with the good news that Rush returns to this chair and the Golden EIB microphone tomorrow.
I love visiting New York City.
I lived here for five years.
Don't love it when it's raining.
Nobody loves New York City when it's raining.
And it's been raining and raining and raining.
It's always great to come in, though.
Saw Stephen Schwartz's musical Wicked, The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz.
Very good idea, fun, well done.
Broadway show, The Road Show is doing well.
So if it's playing somewhere near where you can get to, I think you'll enjoy it.
I watched more television than usual.
Once my wife, Medea, headed back home after going to the show with me, she headed back home to Michigan.
And so, you know, you're in a hotel room and you turn on CNN and you watch what's going on and all that.
And you've got to ask, I couldn't find the Fox News Network on my hotel television set.
I don't know.
You know, we are in New York, so maybe it's not there.
But when did CNN become all Angelina Jolie all the time?
Did I miss something?
Because I haven't watched CNN in a very long time.
They're going to have to get James Earl Jones to record new promos.
This is CNN, the most trusted name in entertainment news.
I can't get low like him.
You know, Rush makes fun of me getting low, low like this.
I can't do that.
No one can do what James Earl Jones does.
But they have to recut that to promo.
Of course, it wasn't just all Angelina Jolie.
They have that baseball minor league manager losing it that they play repeatedly, and also that poor Comcast worker who fell asleep on hold on the job trying to fix somebody's cable system.
Speaking just minutes ago from a New York Public Library, Warren Buffett, who you know by now is leaving all of his money, most all of his money, to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In fact, Bill and Melinda there at a New York Public Library.
He's leaving a small percentage to his children.
You know, it's always bothered me because Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, believe in the death tax.
They don't want to see the estate tax go away, which I think is ridiculous, but, you know, they can have their opinions.
They're really, really wealthy.
And neither one of them say they're going to leave a lot of money to their kids, which I think is wrong because these kids were born and raised into incredible wealth.
And to have it, it's not their fault, and then take it away because they'll never be able to duplicate it is ridiculous.
But, you know, when I think about it, so what if he only leaves them a billion dollars each?
Who am I feeling sorry for here?
You know, kids, you can't have 44 billion bucks.
That's what dad has.
So I'm only going to leave you a billion, and you're going to have to try to make ends meet on that.
He did say, and this is a good line, Warren Buffett quoted as saying, for his children at least, he wants to leave enough for them to do anything, but not enough to do nothing.
That's worth, for all of us, we parents should pay attention to that if we're lucky enough to be able to scrape some things together.
Leave enough for them to do anything, but not enough to do nothing.
Boy, it's very wet in Washington.
Also, federal buildings closed, power outages, weather in D.C. is bad.
But in just a moment, United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez will be here on the Miami terrorists, immigration, of course, newspapers revealing national security issues.
Also scheduled to join us today.
By the way, along with you, you can call the Rush Limbaugh program line always at 1-800-282-2882.
That's 1-800-282-2882.
But also scheduled to join us, former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, Bill Goertz, defense and national security reporter for the Washington Times, latest on North Korea, Iraq, and Iran.
We'll go to school.
Mark Stein on the Chicago Sun-Times will be checking in.
Republican candidate North Carolina's 13th District, Vernon Robinson, and his now famous Twilight Zone ad that's really upsetting a lot of people.
We'll have the ad for you, and we'll have the candidate, Vernon Robinson, to talk a bit about that.
And finally, maybe even we'll squeeze in a moment with Ann Coulter and maybe even talk about something else from her book other than that page or two that has gotten all of the attention.
First up today, moments ago, I had a conversation with our Attorney General on issues of the day, and it is a pleasure and a privilege to welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program United States Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzalez.
Well, it's good to be here, Paul.
Good to be with you.
Lots going on in our country.
Immigration is the most important issue we'll discuss today, but quickly, a quick note.
Anything new on the seven young men arrested in this alleged plot against the Sears Tower and other locations, part of a group of homegrown terrorists picked up in Miami?
Anything new on that?
No, there's nothing new to report there, Paul.
We came out, and I did a statement last week about it, as did the U.S. Attorney in Miami.
And, you know, we'll wait to see how the facts develop here.
And again, I think it's an example of the changing nature of the threat to America.
And it's an example of the Department not waiting until a threat actually matures.
The law does not require us to wait until a potential terrorist or criminal has his hand on the button or his hand on the trigger.
The law allows us to bring folks in.
Well, before then, if we feel that a crime has been committed, then we can prosecute them.
And that's what occurred here.
We took action in the initial stages of the planning phase.
And so I think it sends an important message that we take advantage of our improved intelligence in order to try to stop threats against America, against neighborhoods and citizens before they actually mature.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, I salute you and all the hardworking men and women who really intervened and busted these guys.
I couldn't believe, and I wonder what your thoughts were, too, to read some of the press coverage saying, well, gee, they didn't have any bombs.
They didn't have any weapons.
Maybe they should have left them alone.
How do you react to that sort of reaction to this when you've done a good job nipping something like this in the bud?
Well, again, you know, we don't know what we don't know.
And so we have to take action when we think it is appropriate to take action.
The career prosecutors, investigators made the decision.
This was the right time to take action.
My own sense is that, you know, even a bumbling fool, and I'm not suggesting these are bumbling fools, but even a bumbling fool can be very dangerous if he gets his hands or is provided weapons.
And we don't want to get to that point, quite frankly.
I think we have an obligation to protect the American people.
The sooner we're able to do that in terms of the maturing plot, I think the safer that we are.
I wouldn't want to take a chance.
I wouldn't want to risk one American life because we believe that somehow someone may not be as well trained as other terrorists that we've dealt with.
We're not going to do that.
We're not going to risk one American life to do that.
I agree with you, not 100%, but 1,000%.
Look, if you even make a threat on the life of the President of the United States, you are arrested.
That's a threat on the United States of America.
You should be arrested.
And you did a fine job.
No arguments here.
A quick note.
The President gave an executive order this past week protecting property rights of the American people to strengthen our property rights against taking of their private property.
And it is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property, including by limiting the taking of private property by the federal government to situations in which the taking is for public use with just compensation and for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.
And then he asked you, the Attorney General, to a whole list of items in this executive order, including issuing instructions to the heads of departments and agencies to implement the policy set forth in Section 1 of the order.
Have you already done that?
We are working on that, Paul.
We think this is very important.
Obviously, the President believes this is important that we have procedures and a process in place to do so.
And that's something we're obviously looking at very seriously and working as hard as we can on it.
And something we, the American people, think are extremely important, no doubt.
Now, immigration, very important, and everybody's got an opinion on it.
And there is a broad consensus, certainly, in America, as you've said, Mr. Attorney General, on the issue of immigration, but there are some extreme views out there as well.
And there's concern that whatever we come up with, there's not going to be any teeth to do anything about or little enforcement mechanisms in place.
We go back 20 years ago when Senator Alan Simpson was working on that.
In fact, the Immigration Reform Act of 1986 passed without language allowing, for example, the President to one day consider instituting a national ID system or really any way to enforce it.
What about now?
What's different today?
Well, I think that we obviously have learned a lesson about what happened, that you can't have comprehensive immigration reform without serious enforcement efforts, including work site enforcement.
And obviously, part of making us more effective from the law enforcement perspective in enforcing our immigration laws is to have confidence in terms of the identity of people that you're dealing with.
And we now have the ability to produce tamper-proof identification cards.
It's certainly much more difficult to counterfeit.
I think when you have that kind of technology, that's going to give employers more confidence in terms of the people that they hire.
And so I think that because of the lessons that we've learned, I think because of changes in technology, we'll be much more effective in enforcing our immigration laws.
It is amazing, Mr. Attorney General, when we look back on history and realize that in the 80s, these same programs were suggested.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the League of the United Latin American Citizens opposed almost every aspect.
And when I look at the list, it was a temporary worker program, a worker verification program, beefed up border patrols that included sensors and helicopters.
That was over 20 years ago.
Well, Yogi Berry said it's deja vu all over again.
We've been talking about this issue for a very long time, and it's a problem that's only gotten worse.
And part of the concern the President has about simply focusing on the border security aspect of it is that the 11 or 12 million people that are in this country, they will continue to be here.
They will continue to be here without any kind of legal status.
We really won't know who they are, where they're at, why they're here.
The problem will only get worse.
And for that reason, it's important that we focus not only on simply on securing the borders, but also looking at a temporary worker program, which has a very valid and strong enforcement component.
And also, we need to figure out what to do with 11 or 12 million people that are already here.
Mr. Attorney General, I know you have to go one last quick question.
Representative Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is urging the Bush administration to seek criminal charges against newspapers that reported on a secret financial monitoring program used to trace terrorists.
He cited the New York Times in particular, and in fact has written to you, I believe, and asks you to begin an investigation and prosecution of the New York Times, the reporters, the editors, the publishers.
He said we're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods, it's treasonous.
What do you say?
Well, you know, obviously the disclosure of a highly classified program is damaging to the national security of our country.
I think there's a careful balance that has to be struck in each of these cases.
We obviously have a very strong First Amendment, and I think the role that media plays in our system of government is extremely important.
I think it's way premature to be talking about prosecution of the New York Times.
I mean, I wouldn't comment on any kind of possibility of a prosecution with respect to any particular set of facts.
Again, we do recognize that this is a very important program that has potentially been compromised.
But I'm not going to comment on the possibility or the potential possibility of a prosecution.
Mr. Attorney General, thank you so much for joining us.
Safe travel to you, sir.
Thank you, Paul, for having me.
United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, he is the current Attorney General, and he can't comment on some of these issues.
Well, I can guarantee you the former U.S. Attorney General can.
Ed Meese.
Up next on the Rush Limbaugh Program, I'm Paul W. Smith.
Well, we're keeping an eye on what's happening at the Supreme Court.
Justices in the final week of their term and handling some of the most contentious and important cases.
They meet again Wednesday to announce more decisions.
We're waiting for the Hamden versus Rumsfeld case where you have the former driver, Osama bin Laden, may help decide the fate of dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees and perhaps all of them as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on his legal challenge to the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War II.
They have not yet spoken on that.
There are some word out now that Justice Samuel Alito broke a tie today in a ruling that affirmed a state death penalty law and also revealed the court's deep divisions over capital punishment.
We'll have more on that and the other stories as they break for you.
But we want to welcome in the former U.S. Attorney General, Mr. Edwin Meese, to the program.
Mr. Attorney General, nice to have you with us on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Thank you.
It's one of my favorite shows, so I'm glad to be on the radio with you.
Well, we're happy to have you here, sir.
We had Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez on just a moment ago, and he can't comment on everything because of his position.
You remember what that was like?
Oh, yes.
But you can, can't you?
That's right.
I'm a free man now.
Let's get right to this one then, because One of the stories I mentioned to the Attorney General is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee is urging the Bush administration to seek criminal charges against newspapers that reported on a secret financial monitoring program used to trace terrorists and their money.
Representative Peter King, citing the New York Times in particular, for publishing a story last week that the Treasury Department was working with the CIA to examine messages within a massive international database of money transfer records.
He was writing to the Attorney General Gonzalez, who could not comment on this, as you might well imagine, urging the nation's chief law enforcer to, quote, begin an investigation and prosecution of the New York Times, the reporters, the editors, and the publisher.
He went on to say, we're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous.
What say you, former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese?
Well, one thing, as a lawyer, without knowing all the facts, you don't want to make a determinative judgment on this, but I would certainly say that an investigation and looking into this is certainly justified.
I've been appalled by the New York Times and their willingness to endanger the national security interests of the United States, not just once, but time after time.
As I see it, this is the third offense by them in which they've endangered national security by revealing our methods of trying to cope with the terrorist organizations around the world.
The first, of course, was providing the information that the National Security Agency was involved in the interception of international communications between terrorist organizations and people in this country.
The second was revealing the fact that the National Security Agency was getting information as to certain phone records that were helpful in these investigations.
And the third, of course, was this having to do with the bank records.
In each case, they were putting our enemies on notice of what investigators were doing, which severely hampered the investigations and which was giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
Well, and that's why it bothers me to see a story coming out from Reuters today saying that the White House appears to be leaning toward allowing a secret federal court to look at its warrantless wiretaps, which would be a reversal of their previous policy.
Well, not only would it be a reversal, but it would be giving to a court that doesn't have the jurisdiction under the law this particular matter.
Well, it comes about from the Sunday chat shows and Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who'd been pressing the administration to seek clearance from the Secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the FISA court.
The act requires warrants from the court for intelligence-related eavesdropping inside the United States.
Now, you know, when I read what Senator Specter says and when he says, well, the president said, don't quote me, Arlen, but, and then goes on to speak, I don't know which part of don't quote me, Arlen, do you not understand?
We'll be right back.
We continue with former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese.
I'm Paul W. Smith in for Rush Limbaugh, who's back here tomorrow.
And the Supreme Court also ruling today, Mr. Attorney General, that Vermont's limits on contributions and spending in political campaigns are too low and improperly hinder the ability of candidates to raise money and speak to voters.
The majority taking issue with Vermont's legislators for constraining speech by telling candidates and voters how much campaigning was enough.
And by the way, President Bush's two appointees to the court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, sided with the majority in overturning Vermont's law, which brings me to the question, what do you think of the new makeup of the court, Mr. Attorney General?
Well, I think it's excellent.
I think the president has done exactly what he told the people he would, and that is a point that judges, justices that Have the same model of constitutional fidelity that Clarence Thomas and Nino Scalia have.
And he has certainly done that, and I think that's proving to be the case in these decisions.
There have been a number of them.
You notice most of these last several decisions last week and now this week are five to four decisions, which means that the court is pretty nearly evenly divided, and so the president's appointees have made a real difference.
I want to come back to the Hamden versus Rumsfeld case in a moment, but something that I spoke with Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez about just a few minutes ago, and Joe in Daytona Beach, Florida, is reacting and responding to, and that is the President's executive order this past week protecting the property rights of the American people, the so-called Aquilo decision.
And Joe, I want you to have this unique opportunity to let us hear what you have to say, along with former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese.
Hello, Joe.
Hi, thank you very much.
The executive order signed by the president last week was more symbolic than anything.
It only addressed taking the benefit of private party by the federal government.
In the last year, there's been about 6,000 cases of eminent domain abuse where property was taken just to benefit a private developer.
We can't find one example where it was the federal government that was doing the taking almost exclusively at cities and towns.
What we need for legal reform is for that House Bill, H.R. 4128, to be voted on in the Senate.
The House approved it with 90% approval last year, but it seems to be stuck in the Senate.
And we really need the administration in Ireland Spectre to advance that bill to allow the whole Senate to vote on it, because the way it was worded, it was a perfect bill.
It would give relief to all Americans.
Would you agree, Mr. Attorney General?
Well, I agree with the purpose, but the President did all that he could with his executive powers, and the bills coming out of the House and the Senate likewise are limited to constraining the federal government.
They would not have the authority to constrain state governments.
Those measures, however, are going through many of the state legislatures right now.
Let me, well, I have some phone callers here before I get back to these other questions.
Let me let these folks who've been waiting a long time with the opportunity to speak with you, sir, because it is an unusual one, as we check in with Dan in Niagara, Wisconsin.
Dan, you're on the Rush Limbaugh show.
Oh, thank you.
Listen, I can't help it, but am I the only one that gets a feeling that the Democrats and their official news outlets, you know, the New York Times, Washington Post, CBS, NBC, et cetera, are doing everything that they possibly can to prevent President Bush from being successful in Iraq and the war on terrorism?
Is it because they know that when he's successful, it will set their dreams of socialists and America and appeasement back 25 years or what?
That's a good question, Dan.
I'll let the Attorney General answer that, from his opinion, at least.
Well, I think you're not the only one by any means.
I think a large percentage of the American people feel the same way.
That's why both the newspapers you mentioned are losing their readers, and the networks that you talked about are losing their viewers and listeners.
So I think many people are fed up, and that's why you've seen this tremendous surge in talk radio, like the station that you're listening to right now, as well as the Fox News and other places where we have a much more balanced approach to the news.
And we are happy that you're listening to this, your favorite radio station.
Jim is in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and he's gone.
I'm sorry.
All right, so then I can get back to the question that I had to ask that I wanted to ask about what we're hoping the Supreme Court will be ruling on, if not today, Wednesday, I guess, the Hamden versus Rumsfeld case, and everything that is at stake, it seems, in the war on terror.
Some of your thoughts on that, Mr. Attorney General.
Well, again, it's hard to predict how the court will come out, but I would hope that they would consider the fact that what they're doing in this case is a very important precedent and that they should look at the history and traditions of the court and what has happened in constitutional matters such as this in the past.
For example, in World War II, when you had almost the same situation, and that is illegal combatants, that is, people who had taken up arms or were seeking to do harm to the United States, and yet they were not in organized military groups and did not satisfy the various conditions that would make them subject to the Geneva Convention, but instead were attempting to engage in sabotage and that sort of thing.
They were tried by a military tribunal and executed within, I believe, about six weeks of their being apprehended.
And I would hope that the court would use that as the precedent, because otherwise you're going to bring our judicial system into what is essentially military operations.
Sure, because we're assuming that the president can order detainees to be tried by military commissions with U.S. military officers serving as jurors.
Do you believe that he can?
Yes, indeed, and that goes all the way back to the days of George Washington and the War for Independence.
And in that thought, then, in that respect, do the Geneva Conventions give the detainees the right to challenge the legality of their incarceration in U.S. district courts?
No, there's nothing in the Geneva Conventions that would authorize that.
And so if the court did this, what I would consider an extra-legal and extra-constitutional act, then I think we would have a serious problem not only now, but on any kind of hostilities in the future.
All right.
Let me let our callers speak with you.
I didn't mean to, I wasn't abandoning the other callers.
It's just the ones that had held the longest I wanted to get to before I asked that other question that I had of our former Attorney General Ed Meese.
Your calls here are very important, always.
1-800-282-2882, 1-800-282-2882.
And Nancy is in Waldwick, New Jersey.
Nancy, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Thank you.
I just wanted to thank a former Attorney General from the bottom of my heart for speaking out about the 86 bill and President Reagan's actual feeling.
I think it's been mischaracterized as he just wanted to let everyone in.
And I just wanted to ask him to please continue to keep that clear and straight so that we can not be distracted by the anti-Reagan and we can just focus on what we can learn and not repeat mistakes of history.
But thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
Well, Nancy, what a nice and unusual opportunity you've had to thank him for that.
And we thank you too, former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese, for that.
And remind everyone that this was about 20 years ago that Senator Alan Simpson had come up with this idea.
And many of the same proposals, that is, that we would keep an eye on them in all the different ways that we've suggested, more troops at the border, national ID, all of that sort of stuff that was unfortunately poo-pooed then.
And I'm wondering what will happen now.
Well, that's right.
And one of the things, of course, we want to do, Ronald Reagan, in good faith, followed the recommendations of a commission that had been operating for about several years, I think six or eight years at that time.
And we certainly gave a fair trial to this idea of providing amnesty to those who were in the country illegally.
We learned also that it didn't work.
And so if we're going to profit at all from history and from the mistakes that were made then, which we didn't know they were mistakes at the time, but we've learned later, then that's the only basis on which we can make progress.
Leslie is in Ventura, California, and with the Attorney General, former Attorney General Ed Meese here on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Leslie?
You know, the leaks or the mistakes that are made in government releasing this information.
Why aren't the department heads fired?
It's an interesting question.
You should understand that many of these leaks are not department heads.
Many of these leaks.
Look at the New York Times.
I couldn't believe how many times over the weekend, for example, anonymous sources were their source.
And they were high-level congresspeople, senators, et cetera, that are feeding this information.
But anyway, that's just my thought, Mr. Meese.
Well, I think that if a department head was responsible for the so-called leak, then they should be fired, just as any other employee who leaks that information should, because they are, in fact, endangering national security as well as violating their oath of office.
But it's interesting.
I'd like to know more, as I'm sure most people would, about where the New York Times and other groups like that that leak this information get their original stories.
Let's get one other quick call before our break.
And as Frank is calling from Longmont, Colorado, I'm Paul W. Smith in for Rush Limbaugh.
Frank, go ahead.
Yeah, I'd like to talk a little bit about immigration.
I think a lot of the employers, the big employers, not the small ones, the big ones are part of the problem.
And a good example, and I think the Attorney General, I think he can comment on this.
ConAAGRA, which is in Nebraska and also in Colorado, they have perishable type foods.
And about three or four months ago, they raided one of their plants in Nebraska and caught 900 illegals.
Now, why would a company that big that makes that kind of money even try to hire people like this?
And you can't convince me that the employers didn't know or the people in the plant didn't know that these people were illegal.
Now, if you were in Mexico, and I'm a Hispanic, if you were in Mexico and this word got out that you can go to these big companies in Colorado or Nebraska and get a job, that's why they're bringing their entire families.
Remember the old days, just the head of house would show up, send the money back home, or the entire family's coming now.
So we've got to put some of the blame on the employers.
And, you know, if it's true and they did raid this plant and there were 900 illegals, isn't that 900 felonies?
Well, Frank, that's a good point.
And we're going to let the Attorney General respond when we come back.
And I'm going to ask if we could, Mr. Meese, keep you just a few minutes longer than originally scheduled.
Sure, I'd be glad to.
I would love to do that because I also want you to hear Rush's morning update from earlier this month on the Hudson versus Michigan.
You know, the cops didn't knock.
Right.
And because of police blunders, you don't give criminals a get-out-of-jail free card, which I thought was a brilliant finding.
But we'll talk about that as we continue on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
EIB, the Rush Limbaugh Program.
Paul W. Smith in for Rush.
He's back tomorrow.
Former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese is with us, and the caller was asking Mr. Attorney General about holding companies accountable, that is, for helping illegal immigrants thrive by knowingly hiring them, actually seeking them out.
Something has to be done about that as well.
Well, I certainly agree that when a company or an employer of any sort knowingly employs an illegal worker, that they should be punished as the law provides.
I think at the same time, we have to do a better job of providing a means whereby an employer can check and find out whether a person is legally in the United States, whether it's a telephone system, an Internet system.
And that's part of some of the suggestions that have been made for changing our immigration laws and our immigration practices so that the legitimate employer who wants to check up on these things has to find out if the documentation he or she has been given is in fact valid.
So we need to do a better job of providing that kind of resources to make sure that employers can carry out their responsibility at the same time that we penalize those people who violate the law.
Let's talk about one of the key decisions of the courts, the knock and enter decision.
And Rush did a great piece, as always, with his morning update.
If you missed it on this, your favorite radio station, we have it right now.
Well, we have a Supreme Court ruling, and we have unhappy liberals.
Is there anything else I need to say in this update?
Yes.
The case, Hudson versus Michigan, revolved around a 1998 search.
The police with a warrant entered the unlocked home of Booker Hudson without knocking.
They did announce themselves, but they didn't knock.
They found Mr. Hudson, a loaded gun nearby, and cocaine rocks.
Now, because the cops didn't knock as required, Hudson's lawyers wanted the evidence suppressed.
But in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court said no dice.
Justice Breyer, speaking for the liberal wing of Ginsburg Souter and Stevens, said the decision weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock and announce protection.
But five justices, Robert Scalia, Thomas Kennedy, and Alito, ruled that police blunders do not give defendants a get-out-of-jail free card.
According to Robert Allen of Northwestern University Law School, the ruling suggests that the court would be happy to consider overturning a 1961 court opinion declaring evidence collected in violation of the Fourth Amendment can't be used in trials.
Hudson's lawyer, David Morgan, gloomily declared, the knock and announce rule is dead in the United States.
There are going to be a lot more doors knocked down.
There are going to be a lot more people terrified and humiliated.
Yeah, no doubt too humiliated to grab their loaded weapons and cocaine rocks.
Common sense says defendants shouldn't walk because cops make honest mistakes.
But with the new court lineup, there are going to be a whole lot of sleepless nights in liberal land.
The rest of us, of course, are going to sleep well indeed.
We are.
We are going to sleep well indeed because it just seemed to be common sense here, which we don't see.
I guess it's not very common.
No, it isn't, unfortunately, in some of the decisions that we've had, including that 1961 decision of MAP Against Ohio, which for the first time subjected the states to a rule that the federal government had had since 1910, which provides that when police make a mistake, no matter how technical or how inadvertent the mistake, that the evidence against the wrongdoer, against the criminal, is then excluded.
In other words, a portion of the truth is excluded from the trial.
Now, there are a lot of other ways to discipline police officers who deliberately make mistakes.
And when it's inadvertent, why should the criminal get the benefit of that inadvertent mistake by the police?
But in any event, I think that this was a great common sense decision, and it certainly will be an indication of the kind of decisions that result from when you have the right appointees on the court.
My final thought, if you will, is that, and I can't understand why the ACLU and liberals are up in arms, because the fact of the matter is, by not knocking, in fact, more cops and perps, which is their effort, will stay alive because they don't have time to grab the gun and respond, which in most cases, the perps are going to be dead.
Well, you're absolutely right.
And, of course, it's rare when you have that situation where the police don't knock.
And this was a case where under all the circumstances, they had every right to go in.
And I think it was just common sense on their part and good police work.
And I think that the ACLU, of course, which I've talked about in the past, unfortunately, virtually always takes the side of the criminal against the law-abiding citizen.
It's not unusual for them to whine when the court makes the right decision.
It's been a pleasure catching up with you.
We thank you so much for spending time with us, Mr. Attorney General Ed Meese, and we'll look forward to conversation again.
Thank you.
Good to be with you and with your listeners.
As we continue, Paul W. Smith in for Rush Limbaugh.
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I do appreciate the former Attorney General Ed Meese being with us in that last issue on the knock and enter thing, the Hudson versus Michigan.
Just as Breyer said at the time, as you heard Rush say, it weakens, perhaps destroys much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock and announce protection.
There's probably nothing that's gotten more perpetrators killed than that knock and announce because they have time to do something stupid like reach for their gun.
Now, I'm not so concerned about the perpetrators like the ACLU is.
I'm concerned about the cops who might also get shot before they kill the bad guys.
So it doesn't make any sense, and it was good to see that common sense became common on the Supreme Court with this new lineup of justices.