A decision that is still very influential to Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is Schmerber v. California. After Schmerber and a friend drank at a bowling alley, Schmerber got behind the wheel of his car, and crashed his car into a tree. Because of their injuries, Schmerber and his friend were both taken to a hospital for treatment. Once at the hospital, a police officer requested that Schmerber submit to a chemical test of his breath so that officers could test for the presence of alcohol in his body. Schmerber again refused to comply with the test. After being directed to do so by a police officer, a physician took a blood sample from Schmerber – over Schmerber’s continued objections. The analysis of his blood showed that Schmerber was legally intoxicated at the time of the accident. Schmerber was charged with driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor, and the subsequent report from the blood analysis was entered into evidence at a trial. Schmerber objected to the introduction of this evidence at trial, specifically arguing that the report …show more content…
The Court held that because of the “special facts” the “attempt to secure evidence of blood-alcohol content in this case was an appropriate incident to petitioner’s arrest.” Under current jurisprudence, we would construe the language about “special facts” as relating to the exigent circumstances exception to the Fourth Amendment – which resists categorical rules – and instead focuses on the need for the intrusion and the availability of a warrant. However, the language also justifies the search as “incident to petitioner’s arrest,” which would indicate that the test was upheld as a search incident-to-arrest. In situations where it is appropriate, that has been described as a “categorical” exception to the warrant requirement that does not require any case-by-case
Wife appealed from the judgement of Supreme Court, Special Term, Westchester County, N.Y., Morrie Slifkin, J modifying a judgment of divorce by awarding custody of the parties’ children to the husband.
The impact that this case had on the Constitution and Amendments was that of determining if this officer had done a search beyond the demands of the original search, and if he had violated the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendments.
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
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.
There have been many Supreme Court cases that dealed with many concepts of the law, like obscenity for example. As a matter of fact, obscenity is a concept that Miller v. California deals with. To be more specific, this case deals with what is considered obscene, and if the specific obscenity mentioned in this case is protected by the first amendment, the freedom of speech. I will now explain this case in more depth.
Do you know that notifying your fellow Americans of their constitutional rights was a Federal crime? Well it was during World War One (WWI). In the case Schenck v. the United States, schenck tried to remind his fellow Americans of their constitutional rights and also let them know that the draft was being used as a form of militarized slavery. This case contained men who his right was taken away after he tried to get the military draftees to fight against the draft. However Congress took his right of speech away when it was arrested and convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917. This was the time the WWI one had broken out, the government need men to fight. They were short staffed for that to work and they need man to fight this war so the military started selecting citizen randomly to draft. Schenck fought against this draft saying this in a way it was like slavery.
In the early hours of the night on June 1993, Whren and Brown were driving the Pathfinder truck in a high drug region. In the same locale, two plainclothes police officers with unmarked police car were mandated with the task to patrol the area in the District of Columbia. It’s at this juncture that the police officers observed that the Pathfinder truck in which Whren and Brown were driving had stopped at a crossing stop sign for an extraordinarily long time (Whren v the United States, 1996). Without even signaling, Whren turned right sharply and sped off on realizing that the police officers had made a U-turn towards them. Similarly, as this was in violation of the traffic rules the police officers raced after them and stopped them at the side of the road at a red light. Notwithstanding, Whren was found to hold two plastic bags of what seemed like crack cocaine in his hand when the police came to the vehicle. Whren and Brown were thus incarcerated on federal drug charges. Before the trial, counsel for the defense progressed to overturn the possession of drug evidence. They contended that the police were in violation of the fourth amendment of the constitution as the police had wrongly used the pretext of a traffic stop to investigate possible drug crimes
On February 28, 2018 Judge William H Orrick was presented a case of the City and County of San Francisco v. Sessions and State of CA v. Sessions. [http://www.uscourts.gov/cameras-courts/city-and-county-san-francisco-v-sessions-and-state-ca-v-sessions] The procedural posture was a motion to dismiss and the issue at hand was regarding immigration status verses enforcement.
The exclusionary rule is one of the utmost controversial rulings in our judicial system. The exclusionary rule can be best defined as “the principle based on federal Constitutional Law that evidence illegally seized by law enforcement officers in violation of a suspect 's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures cannot be used against the suspect in a criminal prosecution.” (The Free Dictionary , 1981-2015) The exclusionary rule is not to be mistaken as being intertwined within the constitution for it is not a part of it, instead it is a remedy specially designed by the courts to reconcile violations against a defendant’s 4th amendment rights. Although it’s chief purpose maybe deeply rooted into the 4th amendment, but its protective
In 2007 Gregory Diaz was arrested in Ventura County, California, after he sold ecstasy to a police informant. After being detained and brought to the police station, where he was interrogated, Gregory Diaz’s phone was searched by deputy Fazio without a warrant. The phones text messages were found to have incriminating evidence. Upon being confronted with the evidence Mr. Diaz confessed and was charged with transportation of a controlled substance (Health & Saf. Code, § 11379, subd. (a)). The defendant pled guilty but later moved to suppress the evidence and his confession. The defendant’s motion was on the grounds that searching his phone without a warrant violated his constitutional rights, set by the fourth amendment, against unlawful search and seizure. The trial court found the search to be lawful because the object was in his possession upon arrest, therefore subject to search incident to arrest, rejecting his motion.
Separate but equal, judicial review, and the Miranda Rights are decisions made by the Supreme Court that have impacted the United States in history altering ways. Another notable decision was made in the Tinker v. Des Moines Case. Ultimately the Supreme Court decided that the students in the case should have their rights protected and that the school acted unconstitutionally. Justice Fortas delivered a compelling majority opinion. In the case of Tinker v Des Moines, the Supreme Court’s majority opinion was strongly supported with great reasoning but had weaknesses that could present future problems.
Terry v. Ohio was in 1968 it had a decision by the United States Supreme Court which held that the fourth amendment prohibition on the unreasonable search and seizures is not violated when a police officer stops a suspect on the streets and frisks him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer had a reasonable suspicion of that person had commit a crime in which he can be belief that the person may have a weapons that can be dangerous to a police officer.
In Arizona v. Gant, decided later, the Supreme Court adopted a new, two-part rule under which an automobile search incident to arrest is constitutional (1) if the arrestee is within reaching distance of the vehicle during the search; or (2) if the police have reason to believe the vehicle contains evidence relevant to the crime of arrest. The exclusionary rule is a judicially created remedy, not compelled by the Fourth Amendment,
...existing law and if the decision violated federally protect rights. The third is determining if probable caused existed under search and seizure and had reason to believe that she/he was following due process as interpreted as good faith (pp. 403-404).