Criminal Procedure Exam 2

Curtilage

Curtilage

The area immediately surrounding the home

How can a police officer distinguish curtilage from open fields? Four factors to be considered

Distance, Enclosure, function, protection

Curtilage and Aerial Surveillance

Curtilage is viewed as part of the home, but does not receive the same protections. No expectation of privacy from aerial surveillance.

Expectation of Privacy

Protection from government intrusion; areas with a high expectation of privacy may generally not be searched without a warrant.

The Supreme Court divided home and surrounding land

Open fields (distant from home), Home (physical structure), Curtilage (area surrounding home)

Categories for property

Public: Open to public, warrant not required. Commercial: Warrant required to enter certain areas. Abandoned: No expectation of privacy, no warrant required

Mere-Touch Rule

A seizure requires application of physical force, which objectively manifests an intent to restrain an individual.

Open Fields

Areas distant from the home that lack an expectation of privacy

Subpoena Duces Tecum

A court order to produce documents.

Third-Party Doctrine

Individuals have no expectation of privacy in information turned over to a third party, and a search warrant is not required.

Typical police methods

Searches and seizures, Interrogations, Identifications

Types of evidence

Instrumentalities of crime, Fruits of a crime, Contraband, Evidence of criminal activity, Incriminating statements

Boyd vs United States

adopted a property rights or trespassory approach. Protected individual rights against physical intrusions or trespasses against their persons, houses, papers, and effects

Olmstead v. United States

highlighted the limitations of the property rights approach

Katz v. United States

overruled Olmstead and adopted an expectation of privacy. Court opinion: The Fourth Amendment protects people, not places.

Plain view

An exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement that allows a police officer to seize an item without a search warrant when (1) the officer is lawfully positioned (legally situated) and (2) there is probable cause to seize the object.

Property Rights Approach

An approach to Fourth Amendment protection that assumes such protection is limited to physical intrusions of the home, comparable to trespassory approach

Trespassory Approach

An approach to Fourth Amendment protection that assumes such protection is limited to physical intrusions of the home, comparable to property rights approach.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of

Recording devices, aerial overflights, and photographic technology

Kyllo v. United States

Device usage constitutes a search if they are not in general public use. Are used to explore details of a home otherwise unknowable without physical intrusion.

Carpenter v. United States

Stored Communications Act was used to obtain telecommunication records. Authorized the government to obtain records based on reasonable grounds. Short of the standards for a criminal warrant with the demanding requirement of probable cause.

Supreme Court Rulings: Technology and Cell-Site Location

Information

The Fourth Amendment applies to Cell-Site Location Information (CSLI). The Government is required to meet probable cause warrant standard. Individuals retain and expectation of privacy regarding CSLI

Seizures of Persons: Standards of justification

Probable cause, Reasonable suspicion, Encounter.

Encounters

Noncoercive, voluntary contact between the police and citizens

Automobile Exception

A warrant is not required for an automobile.

Established in Carroll v. United States

Contemporaneous

A requirement that the search must be undertaken before the arrest, during arrest, after the arrest.

Inventory

An administrative procedure recording the possessions of an arrestee and the content of impounded automobiles.

Use of inventories

False claims, Property, Safety, Identification

Important inventory elements

Uniformity, Probable cause, Reasonable procedures, Criminal investigation

Knock and Announce Rule

Requirement that police knock and announce their presence when serving a search warrant.

Why knock-and-announce rule exists

Violence, Privacy, Destruction of property

Knock and Announce: Exceptions

Physical violence, Prison escape, Destruction of evidence

Richards v. Wisconsin

Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld that the police may enter without knocking and announcing their presence. The U.S Supreme rejected Wisconsin courts exception for narcotics offense for two offenses: Overly broad and other crimes

United States v. Banks

The Court unanimously held that 15 to 20 seconds was a reasonable period for police to wait before entering by force when they were investigating drug charges because waiting any longer was likely to result in the destruction of evidence.

Particularity Requirement

The requirement that a warrant be specific in regard to the objects to be seized and the place to be searched.

Pretext Arrest

An arrest that is motivated by the intent to investigate law violations for which no probable cause or even articulable suspicion exists.

Third-Party Consent

Consent to a search provided by an individual with common authority who exercises mutual use of property and has joint access or control for most purposes.

Grab Area (scope)

The area within a suspect’s immediate control that may be searched incident to an arrest

Chimel v. California

defined scope (extent) of a searches incident to an arrest, police may search the area within immediate reach of the person without a warrant.

For an officer to search the person arrested, a warrantless search has three purposes

Safety, Resist arrest, prevent destruction of evidence

Consent Search

A search based on an individual’s waiver of the Fourth Amendment rights. Consent must be voluntary

Evaluating if search consent is voluntary

Coercive police procedures, Requests for consent, Custody, Awareness of the right to refuse, Criminal justice system experience, Consent to search form, Miranda warning, Seizure of contraband

Why consent searches may be refused?

Lack of “unequivocal and specific” consent, Mental disability, Threats to obtain a warrant, False claims of a warrant, Coercion, Trickery

Admission

An individual admits a fact that tends to establish guilt, such as the individual’s presence at the shooting scene. When combined with other facts, may lead to a criminal conviction

Break in the Custody Rule

An individual who invokes the right to counsel may be interrogated after 14 days.

Custodial Interrogation

Questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of the freedom of action in any significant way.

Express Waiver

An affirmative relinquishment of a right.

Implied Waiver

The waiver of a right as indicated by an individual’s words and actions and the totality of the circumstances.

Voluntariness Test

14th Amendment Due Process. Confessions may not be obtained through psychological or physical coercion that overcomes the will of the individual to resist.

The Four Purposes of the Voluntariness Test

Trustworthiness, Fundamental fairness, Offensive police methods, Free will and rational choice

Incommunicado Interrogation

Law enforcement questioning of individuals in the isolation of a police station.

Initiation

The test for waiving a prior invocation of counsel under Miranda.

Involuntary Confessions

Confessions that result from coercion, drugs, or an intellectual disability rather than free will.

Miranda Warnings

The police are required to inform individuals of the right to remain silent, that anything they say may be used against them, and of the right to an attorney, retained or appointed.

Police Methods Test

Due process test intended to regulate police interrogation techniques.

Public Safety Exception

Police may question first if public safety concern without first advising suspects of their Miranda rights.

Steps to rely on exception

Reasonableness, Threat, Questions, Coercion

Question First and Warn Later

Police may question an individual without reading Miranda, obtain a confession, and then read the Miranda rights and reinterrogate the suspect. The confession is admissible so long as the Miranda warnings function effectively to advise suspects of their rights.

Scrupulously Honor

Police must immediately cease questioning, suspend interrogation for significant period, with new interrogation, new Miranda warnings

Third Degree

The use of coercion and violence by the police to extract confessions. Beecher v. Alabama

Voluntary, Knowing, and Intelligent Waiver

A relinquishment of Miranda rights must be the product of a free and deliberate choice and with full awareness of the nature of the right being abandoned and the consequences of the decision to abandon it. Sufficient mental capacity necessary.

Why false confessions may occur?

Police bias, Age and intelligence, Misleading remarks/false evidence, Lengthy interrogations

Types of false confessions

Voluntary false confessors, Compliant false confessors, Internalized false confessors

Three Constitutional Limitations on Police Interrogations

Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause, Fifth Amendment Self-Incrimination Clause, Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel, Miranda v. Arizona

The McNabb-Mallory Rule

U.S Supreme Court immediately required suspects before judicial officer, confession obtained in violation of this rule were inadmissible in federal court. State courts not required to follow rule

Sixth Amendment: Police Interrogations

right to counsel, police cannot interrogate without lawyer after proceedings begin

Conditions when right to counsel applies

Judicial proceeding, Deliberately elicited, Waiver