I. Purpose of a criminal trial
A. Determine the guilt or innocence of accused through constitutional means.
B. When we are thinking about constitutional law that the over-broad rules are thrown out in place of a concise and go to the heart of the issue.
II. What is the purpose of the 4th amendment
A. To protect the right to privacy and property from encroachments from the federal government.
1. 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. The first 8 amendments only apply against the federal government
B. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments – are the civil war amendments.
III. The 14th amendment “All persons born or naturalized in the US and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the US and of the state in which they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the US; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, w/o due process of law; nor deny to any person w/in its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws;
A. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”
1. Equal protection clause – is the due process clause
B. The due process clause of the 14th amendment – similar to that found in the 5th amendment “nor shall any state deprive any person of life liberty…. The right to keep the state out or our person, home and effects and without ability to seize or arrest without probable cause
C. Wolf v. Colorado – Although Weeks recognized an exclusionary rule in federal cases, the supreme court held in Wolf v. Colorado that “ in a prosecution in a state court for a state crime the 14th amendment does not forbid the admission of evidence obtained by an unreasonable search and seizure.”
1. Does property seized in violation of our 4th amendment rights and is used in a state trial constitute a violation of the 14th amendment due process clause.
2. If the incorporation doctrine does not include all of the first 8th amendments then what does it include?
a) The due process clause of the 14th amendment does not incorporate the first 8 amendments.
b) The due process clause of the 14th amendment exacts from the states for the lowliest and the most outcast all that is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.
c) Life liberty and property are fundamental rights
d) Should we incorporate the fourteenth amendment against the states unless they violate something so fundamental as those rights of life liberty
e) Since the unlawful seizure of property is basic to a free society then it runs contrary to the 14th amendment and is therefore unlawful.
D. Weeks v. US – exclusionary rule only binding on the federal government and not on the states. You have to exclude evidence obtained without a search warrant from trial
1. Police entered the home of Fremont Weeks and seized papers which were used to convict him of transporting lottery tickets through the mail. This was done without a search warrant. Weeks took action against the police and petitioned for the return of his private possessions.
2. Did the search and seizure of Weeks’ home violate the Fourth Amendment?
3. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the seizure of items from Weeks’ residence directly violated his constitutional rights. The Court also held that the government’s refusal to return Weeks’ possessions violated the Fourth Amendment. To allow private documents to be seized and then held as evidence against citizens would have meant that the protection of the Fourth Amendment declaring the right to be secure against such searches and seizures would be of no value whatsoever.
4. This was the first application of what eventually became known as the “exclusionary rule.”
5. The exclusionary rule applied only to federal and states were left to do what they wanted. Because the US marshall was involved in this case it became a federal issue
E. Matt v. Ohio – If you take the reasoning of wolf and weeks you get Map
1. Should the exclusionary rule apply to state police officers in state cases
the top of a booth is obtained in violation of the right to privacy of the user of the booth?
b) Whether physical penetration of a constitutionally protected area is necessary before a search and seizure can be said to be violative of the 4th amendment? – Trespass Doctrine
3. The court did not agree with the formulation of these issues. The court believed that the issue was actually that ruled that there did not need to be physical penetration as long if there is some constructive intrusion.
a) i.e. The intent of the call was to be a private call and he had a reasonable expectation of that privacy.
b) The court rejects the notion that conversations are not tangible things for the purpose of the 4th amendment and thus they are regarded as part of the personhood.
c) There is a 2 prong test
(1) Does Individual Reasonable expectation of privacy
(a) has a reasonable expectation to privacy; 1.) Did the person believe that the location was private? (subjective test- a justifiable expectation)…
(b) 2.) Is the expectation reasonable? Objective Test- what societal norms at the time recognizes it as reasonable)*Possible test question
4. The court ruled that the 4th amendment is not a general right to privacy amendment but a protection of privacy against certain kinds of governmental intrusion.
5. The court reasoned that the amendment protects people and not places. A person is under the assumption of privacy free from his statements being publicly broadcast to the world.
6. The court has expressed that the 4th governs not only the seizure of tangible items but any technical trespass under local property law.
7. Government recording violated the privacy upon which he justifiably relied while using the telephone.
