The form that Louisville, Kentucky police officers use when they seek search warrants includes a list of possible justifications, such as the expectation that stolen property, tools of crime or other evidence of illegal activity will be discovered. In one case recently highlighted by the U.S. Department of Justice, an officer checked “other” but wrote nothing on the three lines next to that option, where he was supposed to explain the reason for the warrant.
A judge nevertheless gave the officer permission to search a man’s home. That incident underlines a lesson that comes through clearly in a DOJ report published last week: The civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are meaningless without an infrastructure of accountability that ensures those promises are kept.
