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analysis of the fourth amendment
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Unit Two Assignment:
1.
The whole foundation of the United States of America was solely established by the U.S. Constitution and its capability to protect the rights of its citizens. However, it was not foreseen in 1776 that the very document meant to protect every citizen’s rights, could, in fact, protect those who did not adhere to the law. I believe that one of our primary limitations is the search and seizure method used by law enforcement.
The search and seizure method is the right for law enforcement to search and take belongings from a person or persons into evidence during the duration of a criminal investigation. As stated in the fourth amendment, it is prohibited to conduct an unreasonable search and/or seizures.
In order for law
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Even if the evidence would be a crucial point or argument in the opposition’s side in court, the judge can rule to exclude the evidence because it was obtained illegally. I believe that this reasoning is faulty. Of course, the number one argument against my reasoning would be that the information was found illegally and therefore violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution- the rights of the afflicted person or persons. But the fact that within a search, unlawful evidence was discovered should raise some red flags. Why must the evidence that clearly contradicts (potentially) what the other party is claiming be ruled as inefficient? I believe, that information even if obtained illegally should be allowed to be entered as evidence in the court of law. I do also believe that if this information is entered, then the circumstances at which it was obtained must be somewhat reasonable. Why should we allow people who have been caught clearly in the wrong to continue to think what they are doing is okay? By allowing for a slight leeway in the system of search and seizures could lead to drastic changes in the arrangement of
On September 4, 1958, Dollree Mapp’s was convicted in the Cuyahoga County Ohio Court of Common Pleas (Mapp v. Ohio - 367 U.S. 643 (1961)). On March 29, 1961, Dollree Mapp v. Ohio was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States after an incident with local Ohio law enforcement and a search of Dollree Mapp 's home (Mapp v. Ohio 367 U.S. 643 (1961)). In the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment protects and prohibits all persons from unreasonable searches and seizures. However, can evidence obtained through a search that was in violation of a person’s Fourth Amendment rights still be admitted in a state criminal proceeding? This is the issue that will be thoroughly examined in the landmark case of Dollree Mapp v. the State of Ohio (henceforth
In this court case I do believe that most of the evidence found in this case should be thrown out because it was found out illegally. The officers stop was over after he found out about the computer. Also the officer did not have the right to move around the things in his trunk to find out about the computer. Mr. Wilson also should not have been convicted since he was asking for an attorney and that told you have the access to in your Miranda Rights. In my opinion Mr. Wilson's 4th and 6th Amendments were violated in the search for the car and the confession.
There are records of many cases that has created controversies over reasonable or unreasonable searches and seizures. As stated in the fourth amendment,
The U.S Constitution came up with exclusive amendments in order to promote rights for its citizens. One of them is the Fourth amendment. The Fourth Amendment highlights the right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, 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 searches, and persons or things to be seized (Worral, 2012). In other words such amendment gave significance to two legal concepts the prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures and the obligation to provide probable cause to issue a warrant. This leads to the introduction of the landmark Supreme Court case Mapp v. Ohio and the connection to a fact pattern (similar case). Both cases will be analyzed showing the importance of facts and arguments regarding the exclusionary rule and the poisonous doctrine.
From a trial strategy point of view, you always start with the piece(s) of evidence you believe are most damaging to the client's case and work backwards looking for an exploitable flaw in the search and seizure procedure that would make that or those item(s) inadmissible. The further back in the series of events you can argue a fatal flaw, the more likely that the evidence and any additional materials which flowed from that particular item of evidence will be excluded. This is the practical analysis of all the times we see or hear of law enforcement arguing that there was some technical item which drew their attention and suspicion and justifies their hunch that criminal activity is afoot.
The 4th amendment provides citizens protections from unreasonable searches and seizures from law enforcement. Search and seizure cases are governed by the 4th amendment and case law. The United States Supreme Court has crafted exceptions to the 4th amendment where law enforcement would ordinarily need to get a warrant to conduct a search. One of the exceptions to the warrant requirement falls under vehicle stops. Law enforcement can search a vehicle incident to an individual’s arrest if the individual unsecured by the police and is in reaching distance of the passenger compartment. Disjunctive to the first exception a warrantless search can be conducted if there is reasonable belief
The Exclusionary Rule is a law passed by the United States Supreme Court. It demands that “any evidence obtained by police using methods that violate a person’s constitutional rights be excluded from use in a criminal prosecution against that person” (Ferdico, Fradella, and Totten, 2009). Before this rule, under common law, evidence was acknowledged in court as long as it satisfied evidentiary criteria for admissibility such as relevance and trustworthiness. Any evidence meeting these principles was admitted because it was considered to be helping to achieve justice. Under common law, evidence that was attained by illegal searches and seizures was allowed (Tinsley & Kinsella, 2003). During this period, the protections of the Fourth Amendment were unfilled words to persons condemned until 1914 in the case of Weeks v. United States.
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.
The Fourth Amendment provides people with the right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Courts have long recognized that the Forth Amendment protected individuals from unjustified police intrusions into one’s person, home, car, or other possessions, but few practical protection mechanisms existed. To preserve these constitutional guarantees, the Supreme Court established standards by which police officers must abide. One such protection has been the probable cause — a belief that the person committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. In order to uphold an arrest or seizure, courts have required a probable cause combined with either a warrant or circumstances
modern law, they have a variety of items, including intoxicating liquors, gambling implements, counterfeiters' tools, burglars' tools, smuggled goods, obscene literature, narcotics, illegal firearms and any article the possession of which is a crime or which may be used in evidence. (Encarta Online) The warrant must specify the place where the search is to be made and the property to be seized. An officer cannot get a warrant from a judge in any circumstance. (Grolier Encyclopedia) The officer may have to give a reasonable cause. As ruled in the case of Illinois v. Gates in 1983, ?to establish probable cause, one must show a probability of criminal activity; a prima facie hearing is not required.? (Illinois v. Gates) The accused has the right to fight the grounds when the war...
However, because the Bill of Rights may be vague in its’ description of what constitutes “probable cause,” many cases have been brought before the Supreme Court to debate whether there was sufficient evidence for a search or seizure to take place, and some of these cases have dealt with searches and seizures in schools. One major Supreme Court case took place in ...
After the three drug wars, civil liberties were comprised; the Fourth Amendment of the U.S Constitution regarding the “unreasonable search and seizure” was infringed. Drug checks can be conducted on any motorist, on interstate highways,and land residents are subject to summary searches.3 As The House We Live In showed, any driver caught carrying a minimum of $5000 cash will have his money and vehicle – often a truck -- seized and taken as per the US seizure law that is in effect. Under this law, random searches are conducted at road checks and cars are pulled over anywhere based on the suspicions by the law enforcement officers.
One of the major court decisions for the “Search Incident to Arrest” was Gant vs. Arizona. Rodney Gant was arrested for driving with a suspended driving license. When the police officers arrested him and had him hand cuffed in the back seat of the police car, they then did a search on his vehicle. The police then didn’t have a reason to think there were illegal things in his car just from driving with a suspended license. The search warrant to arrest states that a police officer may conduct a warrantless search if there are any suspensions found within the area. In Gant versus Arizona this was not the case. The police officer had no reason to search Rodney’s car just because he had a suspended drivers license. As the police officer was searching the car he found cocaine in a jacket pocket in the back seat. A previous case ruling such as New York versus Belton, they had made the bright-line rule. The bright-line says that a police can search the compartment on the passenger side of a vehicle or any containers that are within the reach or “grabbing area” of the arrestee. Later over the years there was another court casing, Thornton versus United States. During the courts ruling they had changed the Belton rule again. It now said that the police cannot pursue a warrantless search if the arrestee is secured and locked up in a police car and has no access to the inside of the vehicle. After hearing the revised rule, the court did not give up. In the final courts ruling, a police can still perform a warrantless search only if there is any reason to believe there is other crime related evidence in the vehicle. Since the time of Gants arrest the police had no suspicions to conduct a warrantless search because of a suspended driving license, Gant
All evidence found within illegal standing and evidence that is illegally found by police without a search warrant, are inadmissible in court any illegal search done by officers
In the 1980’s legal tension involving police searches was a direct result of the war on drugs campaign. Officers were encouraged to stop and seize or search suspicious vehicles to put a halt on drug trafficking (Harns, 1998). But placing this aggressive approach into effect had many negative outcomes. One problem was that it put police on a thin line with the constitutional laws. To no surprise, pretty much no data estimating how often police searches fall outside constitutional laws exist. Only cases that catch the courts attention are logged into the record books. A case study held in “Middleberg” on suspect searches reports that 70 of the 86 searches didn’t result in arrest; citations weren’t presented nor were any charges filed. Just about all of the unconstitutional searches, 31 out of 34, weren’t reported to the courts, nor were they intended to be reported.