American Notes

A man's home is his castle, even if home is a park bench or a cardboard box under a highway bridge. And a man's possessions, like his home, are protected by the Constitution from unlawful searches. That was the thrust of a Connecticut Supreme Court ruling last week that ordered a new trial for David Mooney, a homeless man charged with murder because his property -- a duffel bag and a box stashed under a ramp leading onto Interstate 91 in New Haven -- had been searched by police without a warrant. "His duffel bag was luggage," observes criminal-law professor Lloyd Weinreb of Harvard. "If someone were walking down the street with a suitcase, everyone would take it for granted that it was private property." The court ruled that the bloodstained pants and $700 in coins found in the bag were inadmissible as evidence.

In a separate case involving a similar principle, a federal judge held the city of Miami in contempt of court last week for destroying bedrolls, clothes and medicine belonging to homeless people living under a highway overpass. The city was ordered to pay $2,500 to a homeless shelter.