You decide.

SUPPOSE that a member of Congress, locked in a tight re-election campaign, hired someone to murder his opponent. The homicide occurred, the congressman paid the murderer for the job, and the congressman then hid the dead body in his office. Does anyone think that it would be a problem for law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant and search the congressman's office, looking for the dead body?

The principle is the same as that in the Jefferson case -- are Congressional offices sactuaries wehre membrs can hide evidence of their criminality with impunity?

The argument that there is something problematic with the execution of a search warrant in Rep. Jefferson's congressional office has absolutely no foundation in the Constitution. As the Supreme Court has noted, Capitol Hill is not a sanctuary for crime. The Constitution does not protect the offices of any member of government from a search executed in accordance with a validly obtained warrant, nor does it forbid the executive branch from obtaining a warrant where there are reasonable grounds to believe that a crime has been committed.

Now I do not agree with most of the rest of the arguments made by Professor Dow -- he tries to make connections to datamining and other issues that are clearly not connected. But his analysis on this one point is clearly correct.

Anyone want to argue to the contrary?

Posted by: Greg at 11:45 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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