4th Amendment Flashcards
What is the 4th Amendment?
The protection from unreasonable searches and seizures.
What does the 4th Amendment protect?
Persons, papers, houses, and effects.
What are warrants based on with the 4th Amendment?
Probable cause.
What 3 activities does the 4th Amendment regulate?
Searching persons for evidence, searching places and things for evidence, and seizing evidence.
When does a search happen?
when police intrude on a person’s reasonable expectation of privacy and there is a physical intrusion into a constitutionally protected area or intruding in matters a suspect reasonably expects are private.
What’s another time a search happens?
when they interfere with a person’s possessory rights in property.
(T/F) Persons have a reasonable expectation of privacy to things they knowingly expose to the public.
False, they don’t. If they leave it open to the public, then it can be looked into.
What is considered not a search?
- Searches and seizures conducted by non-governmental/private people
- Abandoned property
- Investigation of matters exposed to public view (plain view)
- K9 Narcotics sniffs
Most searches require a warrant. The warrant must contain what 3 things?
- Statement that a crime has been committed
- That specific items associated with the crime exist
- That those specific items will be found in the place to be search
(T/F) Warrants cannot be open-ended general warrants.
True. They must be specific as to the place to be searched and the items to be seized.
What are exceptions to the search warrant requirement?
- Consent
- Incident to Lawful Arrest
- Motor vehicle exception
- Exigent Circumstances
What are 4 categories of items that police may seize as evidence?
- Fruits of the crime
- Instrumentalities used to commit the crime
- Contraband
- Mere evidence
What are the exceptions to the Exclusionary Rule?
- Inevitable discovery
- Good Faith
- Manner of entry in valid warrant
- Impeaching defendant’s credibility as witness
- Evidence is offered in civil or administrative hearing
