Criminal Procedure Outline
Thomas Davies 2010
I. History of Fourth Amendment
A. England
-General Warrants used to be used in England, which was issued by magistrate to give officers the ability to go and search for people who may be involved in crimes.
-Used to be able to sue for false imprisonment if a warrant was used incorrectly on you.
B. United States Warrant origins
-The states wanted to avoid the general warrants of England by writing state constitutions with declaration of rights. These were written to limit the legislatures and create bars on search and seizures.
Modern court reads the 4th Amendment in two sections.
1. Federal government must only conduct searches, etc. in reasonable scenarios.
2. Warrant shall only be used with probable cause that describes what is to be searched.
-Exclusionary Rule only applies to guilty people. This is a strange way to apply the constitution because the remedy for unreasonable search and seizure only applies to guilty individuals.
Principal of Nullity
If a statute violates the Constitution than it cannot be used, and thus is void.
B. Birth of the Exclusionary Rule
Weeks v. United States (1914)
F: Weeks is arrested for using mail services to engage in lottery. Federal marshals and state police go to his house and seize various papers, etc.
Supreme Court:
Held 4th Amendment as applying to conduct of Federal officers (U.S. Marshall).
Must have a warrant to search a house under the 4th Amendment.
Exclusionary rule as remedy if officers violate 4th Amendment.
-Held for first time that in federal prosecution the Fourth Amendment barred use of evidence secured through illegal search and seizure.
Wolf v. Colorado 1949
Fourth Amendment enforceable against States through Due Process Clause
-Court holds that 4th Amendment exclusionary rule remedy does not apply to states, and states can create their own remedies for violations of unreasonable searches and seizures.
-Half of states adopted an exclusionary rule in state trials
Mapp v. Ohio 1961
F: Police forcibly entered with phony warrant to search for a person but found obscene materials instead.
Rule: All evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of Constitution is inadmissible in a state court.
– Since Fourth Amendment right of privacy has been declared enforceable against states by same sanction of exclusion as is used against Federal Government
II. Does the Fourth Amendment Apply
A. What is A “Search?”
Katz v. United States 1967
F: Police attach listening device to a phone booth.
I: Does the 4th Amendment Apply?
a. Plain view/ plain hearing exception
b. Was there an attempt to have privacy here?
Two Prong Test for 4th Amendment
1. Person must have exhibited an actual subjective expectation of privacy
2. The expectation of privacy must be one that society recognizes as reasonable.
United States v. White (1971)
F: White was talking with someone who had a wire on them. The wire transmitted the conversation to police officers somewhere else.
Rule: No protection for a criminal who trusts someone that’s actually agent of police, who gets conversations used as evidence.
Smith v. Maryland
-Court rules that Smith did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy because he voluntarily submitted the phone numbers he dialed to the phone company.
-Phone book says that they can trace what numbers are calling a phone
-Gave information to a third party, phone company. Which shows assuming the risk and thus not a reasonable expectation of privacy.
B. Open Fields
-open fields very distinct from the home or curtilage dating back to the common law
-4th Amendment does not reach the open fields, but only to the home
-An individual may not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the open fields, unless in the area immediately surrounding the home.
Curtilage
-the immediately adjacent area to the home is private
-the area that a man conducts intimate activities…
Dunn Case
-4 factors for curtilage
1. Proximity to the house
2. Whether the area is included within an enclosure surrounding the home
3. The nature of the uses to which the area is put
4. The steps taken by the resident to protect area from observation by people passing by
Plain View Doctrine
-If police can observe something where they legally can be it is not a search.
-The question is whether the police can legally be where they observe something.
-If you don’t take steps to protect privacy, then you are exposing things to the public and therefore knowingly exposing it, and this can be view from above by police and not considered a search.
Oliver v. U.S (1984)
Police followed a footpath into the woods to find marijuana
Rule: Open fields do not provide setting for those intimate activities that 4th Amendments
you have enough info to have probable cause?
-Kinds of information (informants, etc.)
Traditional definitions of probable cause and used by TN Supreme Court
– “Probable cause to arrest exists where the facts and circumstances with the officer’s knowledge and/or reasonably trustworthy information is sufficient to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being committed by the person to be arrested or that criminal evidence will be found at particular place.”
Informants
Spinelli v. United States 1969
Two-Prong Test For of Probable Cause
Basis of knowledge-particular means by which person came by information
Credibility: Source had to provide facts sufficiently establishing either veracity of information or alternatively, the reliability of information
Draper- 1959
-Warrantless arrest based on informant information about Draper.
-The informant gave very specific details about Draper, and what drugs he would have etc. which was all collaborated with police officers observing Draper
-Knowledge prong can be satisfied by setting out detailed information, from which it can be reasonably inferred that they are speaking with personal knowledge.
Illinois v. Gates
-Anonymous letter with tip about Gates going to get drugs in Florida
-Police decide to look into this based on the tip and start observing Gates and his travel to Florida.
-Court abandons the two pronged test and reaffirms totality of circumstances
Rule: whether given all of the circumstances set forth in affidavit before him, including basis of knowledge and veracity or informants, there is a “fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place.”
-Court reduces that definition of probable cause, and ignores the traditional definition.
-As long a fair probability or substantial chance than there is probable cause
-Cant just be conclusory
