Chapter 15

1. Chapter 15 Search and Seizure

2. Introduction The 4th Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. • Search – government agents look for evidence in a manner that intrudes into a person’s legally protected zone of privacy. • Seizure – when agents take possession of property or persons.

3. Introduction Continued: • Warrant – judicial writ or order authorizing the doing of a specified act, such as arrest or search. • As a general rule, the 4th Amendment requires law enforcement officers to obtain a warrant before conducting searches and seizures. • Probable Cause – believe that a search will produce evidence of crime. • Reasonable Suspicion – belief based on all relevant circumstances that criminal activity is afoot. • Unreasonable searches and seizures are not admissible in court.

4. When, Where, and to Whom the 4th Amendment Applies • Curtilage – enclosed space of ground surrounding a dwelling. • Open fields doctrine – 4th Amendment does not apply to open fields around a home, even if these open fields are private property. Police may search and seize abandoned property without the necessity of legally justifying their actions.

5. When, Where, and to Whom the 4th Amendment Applies Continued: • Inventory Search – exception to a warrant requirement that allows police who legally impound a vehicle to conduct a routine inventory of contents in vehicle. • Consent to a Search – person voluntarily permitting police to conduct a search of person or property. • Third-party Consent – consent given by a person on behalf of another. Co-occupants has the right to permit a search in a dwelling they share with someone else. Landlord does not have the implied authority to consent to a search of a tenant’s premises.

6. The Scope of Privacy Protected by the Fourth Amendment • Reasonable Expectation of Privacy – person’s expectations of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable and legitimate. • Sobriety Checkpoints – all drivers passing a certain point are stopped briefly and observed for signs of intoxication. Strip searches are okay, but you need to show reasonable need.

7. The Warrant Requirement Fourth Amendment does not apply to border searches or searches conducted outside the U.S., nor does it apply to open fields or abandoned property. Fourth Amendment does not apply to any situation where a person lacks a reasonable expectation of privacy. The Fourth Amendment expresses a decided preference for searches and seizures to be conducted pursuant to a warrant.

8. The Warrant Requirement Continued: With the exception of warrants permitting administrative searches, search warrants must be based on probable cause. Probable cause exists when prudent and cautious police officers have trustworthy information leading them to believe that evidence of crime might be obtained through a particular search.

9. The Warrant Requirement Continued: • Issuance of Search Warrant: • Under normal circumstances, a police officer with probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime is located in a specific place must submit under oath an application for a search warrant. • Affidavit – signed document attesting under oath to certain facts of which the affiant has knowledge, and sworn to by the affiant. • An affidavit can’t establish probable cause for issuance of a search warrant if it is based merely on the affiant’s suspicion or belief without stating the facts and circumstances that belief is based on.

10. The Warrant Requirement Continued: • Confidential Informants – people who have been involved with police and are seeking favorable consideration in respect to their own offenses. • Two-pronged test to determine probable cause: • Had to demonstrate that informant was credible and reliable • Had to reveal the informant’s basis of knowledge

11. The Warrant Requirement Continued: • Anticipatory Search Warrant – probable cause does not have to exist until the warrant is executed and the search conducted. • Knock and Announce – law enforcement officers should ordinarily announce their presence and authority before entering a residence to conduct a search or make an arrest pursuant to a warrant. Only a few seconds suffice between the knock and entrance of police officers. • Exigent circumstances may render the knock and announce unnecessary.

12. The Warrant Requirement Continued: • Franks Hearing – pretrial proceeding that allows a defendant to challenge the veracity of an affiant’s statements in the affidavit that supports issuance of a search warrant.

13. Exceptions to the Warrant Requirement • Plain-view doctrine – officer may seize evidence of crime that is readily visible to the officer’s naked eye as long as officer is legally in the place where evidence becomes visible. • Emergency Searches – search in response to an emergency. Police can seize evidence in plain view despite not having a search warrant. • Evanescent Evidence – evidence that might be lost or destroyed. Police justify a warrantless search on the grounds that destruction of evidence is imminent.

14. Exceptions to the Warrant Requirement Continued: • Automobile Exception – allows the warrantless search of a vehicle by police who have probable cause to search but because of exigent circumstances are unable to secure a warrant. • Search Incident to a Lawful Arrest – search of a person placed under arrest and the area within the arrestee’s grasp and control. • Hot Pursuit – right of police to cross jurisdictional lines to apprehend suspect. Doctrine allowing warrantless searches and arrests where police pursue a fleeing suspect into a protected area.

15. Exceptions to the Probable Cause Requirement • Stop-and-Frisk – officers stop, question, and sometimes search suspicious people. Pat down search for weapons. • Drug Courier Profiles – set of characteristics that typify drug couriers, such as paying for airline tickets in cash, appearing nervous, carrying certain types of luggage, etc.

16. Technology and the Fourth Amendment • Wiretapping • Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 prohibits interception of electronic communications without a court order unless one party to conversation consents. • Pen Registers – device that allows police to learn every number dialed from a specifically targeted phone. Does not require a warrant. • Cell and cordless phones – broadcast transmitters and accordingly, users have no reasonable expectation of privacy.

17. Technology and the Fourth Amendment Continued: • Digital Pagers • Police are intercepting signals directed to pagers of suspected drug dealers to get the phone numbers of their clients. • Thermal Imagers • Not a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.

18. The Exclusionary Rule • Exclusionary Rule – forbidding the use of evidence in a criminal trial where the evidence was obtained in violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights. • Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine – evidence derived from other evidence that is obtained through an illegal search or seizure is itself inadmissible. • Good-Faith Exception – bars use of evidence obtained by a search warrant found to be invalid. Exception allows use of the evidence if police relied on good faith on the search warrant, even though warrant is subsequently held to be invalid.