Criminal Procedure Outline

 
CRIMINAL PROCEDURE OUTLINE GATHE: FALL 2014
EXAM ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK
•       Is the Fourth Amendment applicable?
o   Is there government involvement? 
o   Is there an expectation of privacy in the above government involvement?
•       If the Fourth Amendment is applicable:
o   Justification
§     Reasonable cause
ú  Balancing test: Balance the need to search against the invasion which the search entails
ú  Reasonable suspicion
o   Warrant
§     Arrest
§     Search
§     Administrative o Particularity
§     Warrants
§     Scope
CASES TO KNOW BY NAME:
 
1.      Katz v. US: The petitioner was indicted for transmitting wagering information by telephone when the government submitted recording of the calls made from a public telephone booth. The issue is whether the act amounted to an intrusion into one’s privacy, violations of one’s Fourth Amendment rights
Ø  Expectation of privacy: Generally, the 4th Am protects people not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of 4th Am protection. 4th Am protections extends not only to tangible item but also the recordings of oral statements unlawfully overheard.
Ø  Holding: The petitioner did not shed his right to be free from an intrusive ear or eye, simply because he was in a glass telephone booth where he might be seen. Wherever a man may be, he is entitles to know that he will remain free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
 
2.      Oliver v. US: Government was acting on reports of marijuana being raised on the farm of the petitioner. Petitioner argued that because he had posted “no trespassing” signs at regular intervals and had locked the gate at the entrance to the center of the farm & it was highly secluded, bounded by woods, fences and embankments, and cannot be seen from any point of public access there should have been an expectation of privacy according to Katz.
Ø Expectation of privacy: 
i. “Open Fields” doctrine- originally from Hester; the special protections of the 4th Am. in their persons, houses, papers, and effects is not extended to the open fields, except for the area that immediately surrounds the home.
Ø Holding: “Open field” doctrine permits police officers to enter and search a field without a warrant; Court said that the property owner’s common-law right to exclude trespassers is insufficiently linked to privacy to warrant 4th Am protection. An individual has no legitimate expectation that open fields will remain free from warrantless intrusion by governmental officers; nor is the government’s intrusion upon an open field a “search” in the constitutional sense because that intrusion is a trespass at common law.
 
3.      US v. Dunn: Similar to the above case; respondent was convicted by a jury of conspiring to manufacturing drugs, with intent to distribute. Ø Expectation of privacy:
i. Curtilage concept: the area immediately surrounding a dwelling house the same protection under the law that is afforded to the house itself.  ii. Central component of this inquiry is whether “intimate activity associated with the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life”
iii. Factors to consider:
1.      The proximity of the area claimed to be curtilage to the home
2.      Whether the area is included within an enclosure surrounding the home
3.      The nature of the uses of the area to which an enclosure surrounding the home
4.      The steps taken by the resident to protect the area from observation by people passing by. 
Ø Holding: Applying the above standard, court decided that the barn and the area around it lay outside the curtilage of the house.
 
4.      Hoffa v. US: Hoffa accused of influencing the trial; another guy given a pardon, hired as an informant; who discussed paying his wife to taint the juror; and the government wanted to use that information against him and Hoffa stated that this violated his 4th amendment rights.
Ø  Third party: There is no interest legitimately protected by the 4th Am when the petitioner is relying not upon the security of a hotel room but upon his misplaced confidence in a third party who reveals his wrong doing.  
Ø  Holding: 4th Am does not protect a wrongdoer’s misplaced belief that a person to whom he voluntarily confides his wrongdoing will not reveal it.  
 
5.      Cali v. Greenwood: Issue if whether seizure of garbage left for collection outside the curtilage of the home, by asking the trash man to forfeit the contents of the bags.
Ø  Third Party: The warrantless seizure of the trash was not a violation because there is no expectation of privacy of garbage in society, which would be objectively reasonable.  
Ø  Holding: A person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.
 
6.      Florida v. Riley: Acting on a tip that respondent was growing marijuana from a greenhouse, cops used a helicopter and viewed it through the roof.
Ø  Curtilage: A home and its curtilage are not necessarily protected from inspection that involves no physical invasion. Because the sides and roof of the respondent’s greenhouse was left partially open, the greenhouse was subject to viewing from the
air and he cannot reasonably have expected for the contents of the greenhouse to be immune from examination from the air. 
Ø  Holding: Given the circumstance, no violation of 4th Am.
 
7.      Aguilar v. TX: Police got a warrant to search the home of respondent acting on a tip; magistrate issued warrant and the respondent questioned the validity of the grounds.
Ø  Probable cause: There must be a substantial basis for a magistrate to determine that there was probable cause in issuing a search warrant for further criminal investigation. Magistrate must be informed of some underlying circumstances from which the informant concluded that criminal activity was taking place. Must have information that indicates that the informant is credible and reliable  
Ø  Holding: The affidavit did not provide a sufficient basis for finding of probable cause and therefore the evidence obtained as a result was consider the “fruit of a poisonous tree.”
 
8.      Spinelli v. US:     Petitioner challenged a warrant; Court used the 2 prong test. Ø Probable cause: 2 Prong Test:
i.        The application set forth any of the underlying circumstances necessary to enable the magistrate to judge the validity of the informant’s conclusion (basis of knowledge).
ii.      Su