Fourth Amendment Flashcards
What doe sthe 4th Amendment protect?
protects the people from unreasonable searches & seizures AND requires that warrants be supported by probable cause
What does the 4th Amendment apply to?
- Applies to gov’t not private action
When is a person seized?
When as a result of gov’t action, a reasonable person in the person’s position would not feel free ot leave or otherwise terminate the police encounter
What is a Terry stop?
a “brief investigatory seizure” because police require the suspect to interact with them, therefore triggering the Fourth Amendment.
What is an arrest?
What is the difference between a Terry stp v. Arrest?
- Duration & purpose
How is property seized?
When police take ocntrol of the property and interfere with the person’s possessory interest
What is a search?
- Any government
- (1) “Investigatory trespass” against a textual 4th Am interest (person, papers or effects) OR
- (2) Intrusion into a reasonable expectation of privacy (REP).
- Search
How doe sthe Fourth Amendment apply to arrests?
- probable cause is always required for an arrest
- no warrant needed to arrest in public so long as police have PC
- Terry stops which require reasonable suspicion can blossom into PC resulting in SITA
What constitutes as exigent circumstances?
- Allows for a warrentless entry into the suspects home to arrest if:
- attempt to arrest outside home but suspect flees into home
- insufficient time to secure a warrant AND delay would allow suspect to evade arrest or destroy evience
- the arresting officer already has PC and is in hot pursuit
- the officer did not create the exigency to forego the warrant
- it is a serious than minor misdemeanor
What is required for a Terry stop?
- There is reasonable suspicion that a crime is afoot (has been committed by the suspect) allows for a
- brief
- investigatory seizure
How do you estable that a crime is afoot (reasonable suspicion)?
- police observation or eyewitness reports
- headlong flight in a high crime area (just see police & bolt)
- informant tip + police investigation that corrobates the accuracy of the informant’s predictions
- tip does not have to be insider information
- if it is just existing info w/o predicition, it is not allowed
What can the police request during a Terry stop?
- A suspect’s name & id so long as
- request has an immediate relation to the purpose of the stop
What is the permissible scope of a Terry stop?
- the timerequired to act in due diligence to confirm or deny the suspicion
- if police in addition had a subjective belief which is irrelevant, this does not make the stop illegal
- they only must have an objective belief that the suspect was engaged in or about to engage in criminal activity
What is required for seizure of property?
- a warrent is required to justify seizure of property
- no warrant required if it is in the officer’s plain view
- the police are in a lawful vantage point to observe the item
- officer does not have to conduct a search to observe it
- incriminating nature of item is immediately apparent
- officer has lawful access to the point of seizure
- (officer may reach for the item to take w/o committing a search)
- the police are in a lawful vantage point to observe the item
What is the plain view doctrine?
No warrant required for a seizure when:
- the police are in a lawful vantage point to observe the item
- officer does not have to conduct a search to observe it
- incriminating nature of item is immediately apparent
- officer has lawful access to the point of seizure
- (officer may reach for the item to take w/o committing a search)
NOTE - it is an exception ot the warrant requirement
NEVER justifies a warrantless search for contraband
How does the the 4th Amendment apply to searches when there is a warrant?
- ALLOWS:
- police authority to search named places or persons
- right to detain people in the house
- BUT not their person UNLESS they are named in warrant
- right to detain people in the house
- police authority to search named places or persons
- SCOPE
- limited to premises descriped in warrant
- Plain View
- applies
- NONSUSPECT OWNED AREA
- need to obtain a warrant
What are the exceptions to a warrant?
- Search Incident to Lawful Arrest (SITLA)
- Automobile Exception
- Special Needs Doctrine
- Consent
- Hot Pursuit
- Exigent Circumstances
- Terry Search (Frisk)
- Administrative Searches
What is a search insident to a lawful arrest (SITLA)?
- following a lawful arrest can search the area w/in the arrestee’s immediate control )wingspan)
- TRIGGERED by
- lawful arrest
- so long as the law authorize arrest for the offense
- BUT NOT for a citation even if it is an offense that is arrestable
- lawful arrest
- SEARCH
- must be contemporaneous w/arrest
- rare cases, it my proceed arrest slight if arrest was inevitable
What is the scope of SITLA when the arrest is in the home?
- You can search the the area w/in lunging distance but not the entire house
- BUT if police have reasonable suspicion that there are others in the home that may put them at risk,
- can conduct a cursory protecticve sweep
- called a Terry Sweep - limited to places where a person can hide
What is the effect of SITLA when in a vehicle (or immediately exit)?
- if the arrestee has genuine access to the interior of the vehicle after arrest
- SITLA extends to the interior of the car AND
- all the containers w/in the interior
- if the arrestee does not have access to the interior of the vehicle after arrest
- SITLAS permitted ONLY IF police have reasonable belief that evidence related to the crime of arrest is in the car
Hypo for SITLA
Officer Smith is executing an arrest warrant for Jerry. He knocks on Jerry’s door and is let in. He pats Jerry down and searches the closet and dresser in the room. Jones does not believe anyone else is in the home. He then goes up the stairs and searches all the rooms on the second and third floors. On the third floor, he finds a stockpile of automatic weapons and explosives. Is this an illegal search?
Tes this is an illegal search b/c
- officer had an arrest warrant not a search warrant
- can search w/in lunge area
- no reason to believe a Terry sweep was needed since did not believe others at hope
- exlcude as fruit of the poisonous tree
What is the automobile exception to the warrant requirement?
- can search automobile (self-propelled vehicle) so long as have PC
- inherent moblity AND
- reduced expectation of privavcy due to gov’t regulations on roads
- Applies to all containers in the vehicle
- vehicle may be seized, moved to an impound lot & searched later
- even if there was sufficient time to get a warrant bet seizing & searching
- Scope dictated by the PC of where in the vehicle can they search
- Immobile vehicles require a warrant - parked away from roads, etc.
- a citation stop can lead to PC & warrantless search allowed w/in scope
What is the Special Needs Doctrine exception to a warrantless search?
- Where police will be unable to protect usfrom an imminent danger if they have to first establish PC or RS
- VALID - to protect from immediate danger
- i.e. - sobriety checkpoints, recently escaped prisoners, counter-terrorism,
- INVALID - to find evidence of a crime
- VALID - to protect from immediate danger
- REQUIREMENTS:
- Based on a fixed formula so not the individual officer discretion
- scope to address a specific threat
- conducted in location/manner to min. citizen anxiety
What can be seized under the special needs doctrine?
any contraband that comes into plain view while searching within the scope of the special needs inspection: even if the contraband is unrelated to the public safety concern
NOTE - police cannot randomly stop vehicles to check license & registration
What is the border exception to the special needs doctrine?
Customs officials may, with no suspicion or cause, as an incident of national sovereignty:
(i) Stop vehicles at permanent checkpoints located at or near the border
(ii) Conduct “routine” searches of people and property.
What is the effect of the special needs doctrine to evidence found?
- If the special needs stop was:
- REASONABLE (for calid reasons)
- any subsequent search or seizure will be unaffected by the stop, even if the evidence is unrelated to the special need.
- UNREASONABLE
- any evidence it leads to will be tainted by the stop.
- REASONABLE (for calid reasons)
HYPO - Special Needs
Angela is stopped at a sobriety checkpoint. Officer Jones stands near the driver’s side window and asks Angela for her license and if she has been drinking. While Angela is answering, through the passenger window Jones sees the end of a bong sticking out of a bag. Officer Smith then has Angela step away from the car. He takes the bag from the car, seizes the bong, and searches the contents of the bag. Inside the bag he finds felony amounts of marijuana. Is the seizure of the bong and the marijuana reasonable?
Seeing the bong, that creates PC and since it is a vehicle, now that he has PC, he does not need a warrant to search the bag where he saw the nobg. All containers in the automobile can be searched if there is PC. Had PC b/c bong was in plain view
What is the rule for consent as an except to the warrant requirement?
- Consent an exception to both Warrant & PC
- officer can ask for consent even if it is just based on a hunge
- Any evidence obtain in the plain view of the scope of that consent is admissible under plain view doctrine
- Individual can limit the scope of consent BUT it must be
- clearly expressed prior to the officer finding the evidence
- CONSENT must be
- knowing
- voluntary - based on the totality of circumstances
- IMPLIED in some cases - airplane or reguilated business
When is consent invalid to the warrant (&PC) exceptions?
- if it is obtained by asserting a fake warrant, fraudulently, under duress, or pursuant to an unlawful police threat
- Police officer not required to inform you that you can refuse
NOTE - if consent is obtained following an unlawful seizure, the unlawful seizure is a poison tree that taints the consent and any evidence to which it may lead.
How does third-party consent effect the warrant requirement?
- any person who has joint control or use may consent
- evidence seized in plain view may be used against both
- consent applies to common areas
- does not apply to private areas exclusively in defendant’s control
- police officer reliance on a third pty consent is reasonable so long as the 3rd pty had actual authority OR
- a reasonable officer would believe the person had actual authority to give consent
What third parties are unable to consent?
- landlord for a tenant
- hotel for a guest
- an employer to an employee’s private storage area
- if co-occupants, if the other is present at the time, they can negate consent even if the other gave consent
What is the rule for hot pursuit as an exception to the warrant requirement?
- lawful when police are in actual hot pursuit of the suspect to apprehend him - no warrant
- police may enter private dwelling while in hot pursuit even if not that of the suspect
- police may execute a warrantless arrest of suspect on the premisies
- police may seize any contraband in plain view pursuant to hot pursuit entry
What is required for exigent circumstances as an exception to a warrant requirement?
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