Loopholes in the 4th Amendment (Topic 5)
In the following paper, I will argue that the loopholes in the 4th amendment to the United States Constitution unfairly target people of color, resulting in higher incarceration rates. In Chapter 2 of the New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander discusses the 4th amendment’s evolution within the court system. Initially, consent searches were used to incriminate people without having enough evidence to stop a person. During consent searches, officers simply ask for consent to search the person and/or their property. This seems rather just if the person has an understanding that they are allowed to deny the officer the privileges of searching; however, this is not the case for most people as they believe that one must comply with an officer’s request. Through the evolution of the 4th amendment within
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That did not seem to be sufficient in wanting the power to search people of color arbitrarily, hence the advent of stop and frisk. With the power of full discretion granted to law enforcement and no effort to stop the targeting of people of color, stop and frisk quickly became an implicit measure to spike up incarceration rates within the black community. Officially, stop and frisk can apply to anyone and is not exclusive to black men. Unofficially, it is commonly known that black men are the primary sought out target of stop and frisk procedures. Evidence of this is clearly shown in how stop and frisk is predominantly practiced in areas with a larger population of people of color. To demonstrate, a simple thought experiment can clearly show that even with full discretion, it would be imprudent and irreverent of any police officer to round up all the white women in an Orange County mall for a mass stop and frisk (Madva lecture 11/14/17), but the same would not apply for a group of young black men in a public
The 4th amendment protects people from being searched or having their belongings taken away without any good reason. The 4th amendment was ratified on December 15, 1791. For many years prior to the ratifiation, people were smuggling goods because of the Stamp Act; in response Great Britain passed the writs of assistance so British guards could search someone’s house when they don’t have a good reason to. This amendment gave people the right to privacy. “Our answer to the question of what policy must do before searching a cellphone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple - get a warrant.” This was addressed to officers searching people’s houses and taking things without having a proper reason. I find
Stop and Frisk is a procedure put into use by the New York Police Department that allows an officer to stop and search a “suspicious character” if they consider her or him to be. The NYPD don’t need a warrant, or see you commit a crime. Officers solely need to regard you as “suspicious” to violate your fourth amendment rights without consequences. Since its Beginning, New York City’s stop and frisk program has brought in much controversy originating from the excessive rate of arrest. While the argument that Stop and Frisk violates an individual’s fourth amendment rights of protection from unreasonable search and seizure could definitely be said, that argument it’s similar to the argument of discrimination. An unfair number of Hispanics and
While the stop and frisk program ultimately seems like a great idea and that it will help residents of New York City feel safer while on the streets, there has been much controversy with this program. The issue of racial profiling is largely discussed when talking about NYPD’s stop and frisk program. Besides police officers targeting lower income neighborhoods, more stops are of African Americans or Latinos than of whites. These stops often end up with a higher arrest rate. Of the 685,784 stopped last year, 92% were male and 87% were African American or Latino (Devereaux, 2012).
Racial profiling is the tactic of stopping someone because of the color of his or her skin and a fleeting suspicion that the person is engaging in criminal behavior (Meeks, p. 4-5). This practice can be conducted with routine traffic stops, or can be completely random based on the car that is driven, the number of people in the car and the race of the driver and passengers. The practice of racial profiling may seem more prevalent in today’s society, but in reality has been a part of American culture since the days of slavery. According to Tracey Maclin, a professor at the Boston University School of Law, racial profiling is an old concept. The historical roots “can be traced to a time in early American society when court officials permitted constables and ordinary citizens the right to ‘take up’ all black persons seen ‘gadding abroad’ without their master’s permission” (Meeks, p. 5). Although slavery is long since gone, the frequency in which racial profiling takes place remains the same. However, because of our advanced electronic media, this issue has been brought to the American public’s attention.
“From 2005 to mid-2008, approximately eighty percent of total stops made were of Blacks and Latinos, who comprise twenty-five percent and twenty-eight percent of New York City’s total population, respectively. During this same time period, only about ten percent of stops were of Whites, who comprise forty-four percent of the city’s population” (“Restoring a National Consensus”). Ray Kelly, appointed Police Commissioner by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, of New York in 2013, has not only accepted stop-and-frisk, a program that allows law enforcers to stop individuals and search them, but has multiplied its use. Kelly argued that New Yorkers of color, who have been unevenly targeted un...
One of the biggest reason stop-and-frisk should be abolished is in hopes to decrease such blatant racial profiling that has been going on under the name of “stop-and-frisk”. In 2007, 55% of the people stopped in New York were blacks and 30% were Hispanic (“Update: Crime and Race”). When checked again in 2011 a total of 685,000 people were stopped by the police of that 685,000, 52.9% were African Americans, 33.7% were Latino, and 9.3% were white (“Racial Profiling”). There is a story of an innocent victim of the stop-and-frisk policy, a man by the name of Robert Taylor. Police in Torrance stopped the elderly man and claimed he fit the description of a suspect that was linked to a robbery. But there was one simple problem; Taylor is a light complexioned, tall, 60 year-old man and the suspect was believed to be a short, dark complexioned, stocky man in his thirties; nothing like Taylor at all (Hutchinson). His shows that the police do not always stop people based on the right reasons, they tend to stop people based on the color of thei...
One discriminating practice used by police officers is racial profiling. This is the police practice of stopping, questioning, and searching potential criminal suspects in vehicles or on the street based solely on their racial appearance (Human Rights Watch, 2000). This type of profiling has contributed to racially disproportionate drug arrests, as well as, arrests for other crimes. It makes sense that the more individuals police stop, question and search, the more people they will find with reason for arrest. So, if the majority of these types of stop and frisk searches are done on a certain race then it makes sense that tha...
The Constitution of the United States of America protects people’s rights because it limits the power of government against its people. Those rights guaranteed in the Constitution are better known as the Bill of Rights. Within these rights, the Fourth Amendment protects “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable search and seizures […]” (Knetzger & Muraski, 2008). According to the Fourth Amendment, a search warrant must be issued before a search and seizure takes place. However, consent for lawful search is one of the most common exceptions to the search warrant requirement.
A landmark legal case that is proof of all the racial profiling that is present in such issues is the case Brandley v. Keeshan. In this case Clarance Brandley, a black high school janitor was accused of raping and murdering Cheryl Fergeson, a sixteen-year-old white student. He and another janitor had found her naked in the school’s loft. Once interrogations were conducted to figure out who was the one guilty of the crime the investigator told Brandley, “Since you’re the nigger, you’re elected.” This information stands for itself on showing that racial profiling was an is an issue within the criminal justice system, but that discrimination is only a small portion of what happened in the case. Brandley was also given a polygraph test and the examiner, having sixteen years of experience said he was not involved in the crime, but that information was dismissed. He was also interrogated for five hours in which they tried to make him please guilty, but Bradley did not give into the intimidation of the interrogation and kept saying he was innocent. In court, Brandley faced an all-white jury twice. During an interview, Brandley stated that black jurors had been taken out of the jury. The town where Brandley’s court was held was a town where Klu Klux Klan meetings still took place and the
In 1787, the Constitution, created by a group of men known as the “Framers”, is the highest law in the United States. At first, the Constitution was not ratify because it did not have a bill of rights which is a list of rights that belong to the people. Therefore to allow changes to the Constitution, the Framers created the amendment process. In 1791, congress proposed twelve changes to the Constitution. Ten of the twelve changes were agreed to by the states and were called “The Bill of Rights.” Some of these rights include the right of free speech, the right to practice your own religion and the right to be silent if you are arrested.
Turner, Billy. 1986. “Race and Peremptory Challenges During Voir Dire: Do Prosecution and Defense Agree?” Journal of Criminal Justice 14: 61-69.
Angelie Ortiz Ms. Matlen ERWC Period: 1 Racial Profiling In the United States of America today, racial profiling is a deeply troubling national problem. Many people, usually minorities, experience it every day, as they suffer the humiliation of being stopped by police while driving, flying, or even walking for no other reason than their color, religion, or ethnicity. Racial profiling is a law enforcement practice steeped in racial stereotypes and different assumptions about the inclination of African-American, Latino, Asian, Native American or Arab people to commit particular types of crimes. The idea that people stay silent because they live in fear of being judged based on their race, allows racial profiling to live on.
The Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule has undergone a harsh and controversial development. This article not only critically analyzes the numerous alternatives and slight modifications to the exclusionary rule but the advanced by courts and commentators as well, (Schroeder, 1361). The article also puts emphasis on the alternative route of police policy making and a means to control official misconduct and violations of citizens rights. The exclusionary rule is one of the most significant defense stance of the fourth amendment. ITs establishment has created a wide spread of protection against violations of citizens rights.
The Fourth Amendment states “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, 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.” Despite this right, multiple minorities across the country suffer at the hands of police officers through racial profiling; the singling out of a person or persons as the main suspect of a crime based on their race. Many people have also suffered the loss of a loved one because police believed the suspect to be a threat based on their races therefore the officers use their authority to take out the “threat”. Although racial profiling may make sense to police officers in the line of duty, through the eyes of the public and those affected by police actions, it is a form a racism that is not being confronted and is allowing unjust convictions and deaths.
How I think police officers look at stop-and-frisk policy as a way to help to narrow on crime. For example, during a crime bust of a boss that information and data were pointing towards Caucasians, they start at the low-level and work their way up till they get the boss. Keeping that in mind, if all the lower level people that work under the boss were Asian and the police looked for an Asian boss that would be considered racial profiling because in this scenario the boss was Caucasian. The reason I find this to be racial profiling is becaus...