Constitutional Law for Police
Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that governmental officials shall
be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In
a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For
good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it
breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means-to declare that the
government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal-would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely set its face.
This philosophy, that the government agents should be subjected to certain
restrictions in enforcing laws was summarized by Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandies in the case of Olmstead v. United States.
At the bottom of the same page it reads and I quote, The constitutions of the
original thirteen states were written during a period in history when the people were
keenly aware of their rights and of the possibility that a strong government might deprive them of these rights. The Constitution of the United States,
which was written only a few years after the Declaration of Independence, was framed by men who had lived during a period
of strict control and later during a period of too little control. As a result
it was the intention of these dedicated men that the new government established under
the United States Constitution protect both the rights of the individual and the rights of society.
The information above is a direct quote from the preface of Constitutional
Law for Police Volume One of the Police Text Series by John C. Klotter, B.A., LL.B. Associate Director Southern Police Institute
and Jacqueline R. Kanovitz, B.A., J.D.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 67-30989 - 4th printing 1970
Number at bottom of page V - Small #1
then 277 US 438 (1928)
