Nevada Family's Constitutional Rights Violated By Authorities

Investment Business Daily: A Nevada family files a lawsuit after police literally seize their house to use as a command post after entering without a warrant and assaulting family members. Isn't this what helped start the American Revolution?

For those who snoozed through civics class, recent news events have provided an education on the U.S.

Constitution, the bedrock of American democracy, assaulted by an administration that views it as obstructionist and irrelevant and by courts that view it as a "living document" — which is to say it means whatever they say it means on any given day.

The contraceptive mandate within ObamaCare has assaulted the Constitution's freedom of religion guarantee in the First Amendment, for one. It has shredded the First Amendment again by confiscating the Associated Press' records and authorizing a warrant branding Fox News reporter James Rosen a traitor.

We have also learned about the Fifth Amendment, the one that IRS exempt-organizations chief Lois Lerner invoked to protect her right against self-incrimination — for trampling on that same right of others.
This administration has also shredded the 10th Amendment principle of federalism, again through ObamaCare, which forces states to do what they don't want to do under powers they don't think the feds have.

Arguably the NSA surveillance program violates the Fourth Amendment, the one that reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Speaking of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure, consider the case of the Mitchell family of Henderson, Nev.

The Mitchells filed a lawsuit on July 1 after their home was seized by police who claimed they needed it to gain "tactical advantage" in a domestic violence investigation in the neighborhood.

This act by a militarized police force would also seem to violate the Third Amendment, which reads: "No soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

According to the complaint, when the police showed up, homeowner Anthony Mitchell refused to vacate his castle as it were, whereupon police smashed through the door, forced him to the floor at gunpoint, then shot him and his dog with rounds of pepper-spray pellets.

Police then allegedly handcuffed and arrested Mitchell in connection with "obstructing a police officer" before occupying his home.

Not happy with seizing one house, police went to the house of Anthony Mitchell's parents, Linda and Michael Mitchell, who lived in the same neighborhood. There they lured Michael Mitchell out of his house by saying they needed his help to persuade the neighbor involved in the domestic dispute to surrender. They then returned to yank Linda Mitchell out of her house after she refused to let them in without a warrant.

As University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds argues, when the Constitution was written, the modern day police force with Nomex coveralls, body armor, AR-15 rifles, grenades and armored vehicles didn't exist or they, too, would have been mentioned.

Sounds like "soldiers" to us, and as Mitchell family attorney Frank Cofer states, "After entering the houses, they drank water, ate food, enjoyed the air conditioning. That struck me as quartering." That's because it is.
Our liberties are slowly slipping away, whether it be on the grounds of fighting terrorism, fighting crime or that favorite liberal canard, "if it saves just one life."

We are being constantly reminded why the Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment right to bear arms. It was to protect the other nine in the Bill of Rights.
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Author unknown for article on Investment Business Daily (IBD); Shared under Fair Use Doctrine for educational purposes.

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