Issue 3: Search and Seizure

Question 1

Is the warantless search through which the criminal evidence was gathered valid under any of the eight exceptions to the warrant requirement?

Answer 1

ESCAPIST

1. Exigent circumstances
2. Search incident to arrest
3. Consent
4. Automobile
5. Plain view
6. Inventory
7. Special Needs
8. Terry stop and frisk

Question 2

Exigent Circumstances

Answer 2

1. Evanescent Evidence: evenidence that would disspiate or disappear in the time it would take to get a warrant.
2. Hot Pursuit of a Fleeing Felon:
   
   1. hot pursuit allows police to enter a suspects home or that of a third party to search for a fleeing felon
   2. During hot pursit, any evidence of a crime discovered in plain view while searching for the suspect is admissible
3. Emergency Aid Exceptoin: Police may eneter a residence without a warrant when there is an objectively reasaonble basis for believe that a person inside is in need of emergency aid to address or prevent injury

Question 3

Search Incident to Arrest

Answer 3

• Arrest must be lawful
• Justifications:
  
  • officer safety AND
  • the need to preserve evidence
• Timing: search msut be contemporenous in time and place with the arrest
• Geographic scope: the wingspan, which includes the body, clothing and any continaers within the arrestee’s immediate control without regard to the offense for which the arrest was made
• Automobiles searched incident to a custodial arrest:
  
  • Permissible scope–the interior, including closed contianers, but not the trank.
  • Secured versus unsecured arrestees: Once an officer has secured an arrestte, the officr can search the arrestee’s vehicle only if she has a reasonbe to believe the vehicle may contain evidence relating to the creim for which the arrest was amde.

Question 4

Consent

Answer 4

• Standard: consent must be voluntary and intelligible.
  
  • do not need to tell somone that she has the right to refuse consent.
• Scope: an officer’s consent to search extends to all areas for which a reasonable officer would believe permission to search was granted.
• Apparent Authoirty: if a police officer obtains consent to search from sone who lacks actual authoirty to grant it, the cosent is still valid provided the officer reasonably believed the consent party has actual authority
• Shared Premises: when adults share a residence, any resident can consent to a serach of common ares within it
  
  • if co-tenants disagree regarding consetn to search common areas, the objective party prevails, as to areas over which they share dominion and control

Question 5

Automobile Exception

Answer 5

• Justification: vehicles’s are readily mobile and individuals lesser expectation of privacy in vehicles
• standard: police officers need probable cause to believe that contrabnd or evidence of crime will be found in a vehicle
• Where can they search: the entire vehicale AND they may open any package luggage that may reasonable contain the items for which there was probable cause to search.
• Traffic Stops and Auto Searches: sometimes what begins as a routine traffic stop results in searches. For it to be lawful, officer does not need probable cause to search the vehical at the time the car is pulled over povided he acquires it before initating the search.–Sequence of events matter.

Question 6

Plain View

Answer 6

Three requirements for seizing an item in plain view:

1. lawful acess to the place from which the item can be seen
2. lawful access to the item itself AND
3. Criminality of the item must be *immediately apparent *

Question 7

Inventory Searches

Answer 7

• Most common occurrence:
  
  • 1) arrestees: when they are booked into jail
  • 2) vehicles: when they are impounded
• **Constitutional provided that: **
  
  • regulations governing them are reasonable in scope
  • the search itself complies with those regulations AND
  • the search is conducted in good faith, that is, it is motviated solely by the need to safeguard the owner’s possessions and or to ensure officer safety

Question 8

Special Needs

Answer 8

special needs of law enforcement, governmental employers and school officials beyond a general interest in law enforcement.

• Drug testing
• parolees
• school searches
• border searchers
• non-law-enforcement primary purpose

Question 9

Special Needs: Drug Testing

Answer 9

approved warrantless, supscionless durg tests in various circumstances including:

• Railroad employees follwing an impact accident
• custom agents responsible for drug interdiction
• students who participate in any extracurricular activity

Question 10

Special Needs: Parolees

Answer 10

warrantless, suspicionless searches of a parolee and his effects are permissible as a condition of parole

Question 11

Special Needs: School Searches

Answer 11

• warantless searches of the person and the effects of public schoolchildren are permissible to investigate violations of school rules such as the prohibition of somking on school grounds, provided the search is
  
  • reasonable at its inception and
  • is not excessively intrusive in light of the agen and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction

Question 12

Special Needs: Border searches

Answer 12

neither citizens nor non-citizens have any 4th Amendment rights at the border with respect to routine saerches of persons and effects

Question 13

Special Needs: non-law-enforcement primary purpose test

Answer 13

the special needs doctrine does not include law enforcement programs or practices whose primary purpose is to gather criminal evidence for general use by law enforcement

Question 14

Terry Stops: What is a Terry STop?

Answer 14

• a brief detention or seizure for the purpose of investigating suspicous conduct.
• can take place anywhere (on the street, in a car, in an airport concourse, or on a bus)

Question 15

Terry Stops: WHen are you seized for 4th Amendment purposes

Answer 15

• an individuals is seized based on
  
  • a totality of the circumstances,
  • a resaonble prson would not feel free to leave OR
  • to decline an officers reuqest to answer questions
• Consider
  
  • whether an officer brandishes a weapon
  • the officer’s tone and demeanor when interacting with the stopped person
  • whether the invidiual was told she had the right to refuse consent

Question 16

Terry Stops: Police Pursuit and seizure

Answer 16

• when being pusued by a police officer, an individual is seized ONLY if
  
  • he submits to the officer’s authoirty by stopping OR
  • if the officer physically restrains him

Question 17

Terry Stops: Traffic Stops–three important principal

Answer 17

• in a traffic stop, both the passenger and the driver are seized such that iether can challenge the stops legality
• in a traffic stop, the officer may, in her discretion order both the direver and the passengers out of the car
• dog sniffs at traffic stop are permissible provided the sniff does not prolong the stop unreasonalby

Question 18

Terry frisks: What is a terry frisk

Answer 18

It is a patdown of the body and outer clothing for weapons that is justified by an officer’s belief that a suspect is armed and dangerous

Question 19

Terry Frisks: what can be seized

Answer 19

• somehting she reasonably believes to be a weapon can always be seized
• Can seize something she recognizes as contraband without manipulating the object

Question 20

Terry Frisks: Car Frisks

Answer 20

during traffic s top, officer may serach the passenger’sof the suspects vehicle limited to those areas in which a weapon may be placed or hidden if an officer believes that a suspect is dangerous

Question 21

Terry Frisks: protective sweeps

Answer 21

when making an in-home arrest, police may sweep the residence to look for crominal confderates of the arestee whose presence may threaten an officer’s safety

Question 22

What evidentiary standard applies to Terry stops and frisks

Answer 22

Reasonable suspciion which is less than probable cause

• In stops: requires specifica and articulable facts that inform an officer’s belief that criminal activity present
  
  • concerned solely with objective evaluation
• Frisks: it requires specific and articlable facts that suggest that a suspect is armed and dangerous
  
  • justified only by concern for officer’s safety–not search for evidence
• Informant’s tips: Provided that the tip contains sufficient predictive information that is corrobrated by the police to establish the informat’s reliability

Question 23

What evidentiary standard apply in protective sweeps

Answer 23

• an in-home arrest, officers have authoirty, without probable cause or reasonable suspicion to look in areas adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack could immediately be launched
• to justify sweep of more remote areas, must have additional facts sufficient to allow a reasonbly prudent officer to conclude that an invidiaul who may threat officer safety is present in the areas swept.