NYC Police Commissioner: Supreme Court Makes Law Enforcement “More Difficult”
New York City Police Commissioner Vincent L. Broderick charged on this day that recent Supreme Court decisions had “no doubt” made law enforcement “more difficult.”
He added that courts are “often not aware enough of the civil liberties of the majority of the people,” meaning those who are law-abiding.
Broderick was in for an even bigger shock the following year when the Supreme Court handed down its famous Miranda decision, on June 13, 1966, requiring the police to advise suspects that they have a right to remain silent. The police and their conservative allies had also been angry by the Supreme Court’s decision in Mapp v. Ohio, decided on June 19, 1961, which held that police and prosecutors could not use at trial evidence that was obtained through an unconstitutional search under the Fourth Amendment (the “exclusionary rule”).
On the history of the police and the Supreme Court, read: Samuel Walker, Popular Justice: A History of American Criminal Justice, 2nd ed. (1998)