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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

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And it's just a punt onto the merits: I fully expect the 5th to go "okay, it's a reasonable search", maybe even snark about how technically precedent doesn't require warranted searches to be reasonable, and then SCOTUS to deny cert on the eventual appeal.

Why wouldn't it be a reasonable search, given that the police in Chatrie had a warrant?

The only thing the Supreme Court seems to be saying here is that you can't completely punt the issue by declaring it a non-search (because reasons) rather than a reasonable one.

Why wouldn't it be a reasonable search, given that the police in Chatrie had a warrant?

My personal read of the Fourth Amendment is that the warrant clause is disjoint from the right to be secure from unreasonable seizures, and a warrant does not automatically make a search reasonable. But, to be clear, SCOTUS does not agree with me. McNeely holds that a blood draw is perfectly valid as a subject of a warrant. I think this leads to very bad places, as evidenced by what rubber-stamp warrants often lead to, but that's just my position.

And, yeah, it's a punt-of-a-punt from SCOTUS.

McNeely holds that a blood draw is perfectly valid as a subject of a warrant.

Obviously there's evidence you can get from a blood draw for certain crimes that are extremely important and also potentially exculpatory, and I don't see the reason why a blood draw would be in itself unreasonable.

It's not quite as bad as you make it out -- SCOTUS has placed limits on warrants, at least as to generality and specificity. Groh v. Ramirez & Riley v. California come to mind. They only mostly disagree with you :-)

Also, while McNeely holds that a blood draw is valid, Winston v Lee holds that a surgery to remove a bullet isn't. So there's some cognizable limit there too.

Why wouldn't it be a reasonable search, given that the police in Chatrie had a warrant?

"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."

The question is whether "everything in that area" is particular enough.