Just what is it that prevents state and federal law enforcement officers from getting a proper search warrant when they think they have a good reason to go searching?
To listen to some of their excuses, one would be left to wonder if a legal search warrant can only be written in unicorn’s blood on gold-leafed parchment. To surmise that state and federal judges are so unapproachable as to frighten off all but the most determined officers.
The most obvious example of a cop who tried to circumvent the standard constitutional process for a search is the officer who has since been put on leave for roughing up a University of Utah Hospital nurse who was trying to protect one of her patients from an illegal attempt to take a sample of his blood.
The resulting nationwide revulsion at the conduct of the officer and his supervisor — and the questionable lack of effort to intervene by other officers on the scene — would obviously never have happened if the Salt Lake City detective had bothered to wake up a judge and get a warrant for his quest.
Either the judge would have said no, hopefully ending the whole affair, or he would have said yes, clearing a legal path for the blood sample the officer seemed so desperate to get.
Meanwhile, it appears that two federal agencies are finding their way into two electronic databases owned and operated by the state of Utah. They are conducting warrantless searches for information that those creating the records intended to be inaccessible to anyone not bearing the kind of judicial permission required by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
It was reported this week that some undocumented workers who have recently renewed their Utah Driver Privilege Cards were, soon thereafter, contacted by agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and told that they had 30 days to leave the country. Which suggests that ICE agents have been noodling around in the state’s license records. Without a warrant.
This is exactly the opposite of what the Utah Legislature intended when they created the special type of drivers license in 2005.
The idea was to encourage people who were likely to operate motor vehicles on local roads and highways no matter what the law said to go through the process of obtaining a card. At least those drivers would have to pass the same drivers test as everyone else, and carry the same kind of insurance as everyone else, making the state’s roadways safer.
The deal was that there would be no further questions asked about immigration status — at least not in the context of getting and renewing the privilege cards. But it appears that ICE has, without so much as a by your leave to the state, broken that pact.
Meanwhile, state officials have capitulated to a federal judge’s ruling that the electronic records it keeps of prescriptions issued by doctors in the state will now be available to the Drug Enforcement Agency, whenever that agency chooses on its own to issue an administrative subpoena for such information. No warrant from a judge required.
The decision by U.S. District Court Judge David Nuffer allowing the searches was based on the idea that prescriptions are already regulated and that those getting them and those giving them have no expectation of privacy about such things.
Which is, of course, the polar opposite of the general understanding of the term ”doctor-patient privilege.”
Nuffer’s decision is just the sort of federal overreach that most Utah politicians are so much in favor of being against.
Utah officials should fight that ruling, through the courts and in Congress. And they should tell ICE to keep its nose out of the state’s drivers license records, too, except in cases where agents can convince a judge to issue a search warrant.
Just as the Constitution requires.