Chapter 10 - Search & Seaizure: Exceptions to the Warrant Requirement

Consent Searches

- spouse - live-in mate - roommate - child - parents - landlord - tenant - hotel manager - host - employer - employee - bailee

Twelve Exceptions to Search Warrant

1) Arrest 2) Stop & Frisk 3) Search Incident to Lawful Arrest 4) Plain View 5) Motor Vehicle Searches 6) Hot Pursuit 7) Evanescent Evidence 8) Border, regulatory, and emergency searches 9) Consent Searches 10) Inevitable discovery 11) Community care-taking function 12) Search by a private individual

How do you determine voluntary consent?

1) Does the person know they can refuse? 2) Is there anything coercive about the circumstances? 3) Person susceptible to coercion? 4) Have police lied about having a warrant? 5) Overbearing show of authority?

FOUR questions to ask if the search will constitute a lawful arrest

1) What time of arrest justifies such a search? 2) How close in time must the search be to the arrest? 3) To what areas can the search be extended? 4) What evidence can be seized?

THREE Requirements for Plain View

1)Police at scene lawfully 2) items discovered inadvertently 3) probable cause to believe the items seized are evidence of a crime

Define: Stop & Frisk

Brief investigatory stop occurring when a police officer confronts a suspicious looking person to ask a few questions and to "pat down" their clothing to see if they are carrying weapons

Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz

Case that dealt with the validity of sobriety checkpoints... court said its constitutional in that there is a compelling state interest in the drunk driving problem. 4th amendment state has interest to stop drunk drivers on the road. It is a seizure under the 4th, b/c gov't interest of undocumented persons

Gouled v. United States

Defendant allowed an undercover agent to enter the premises accompanied by the defendants friend. Defendant left and the agent searched the premises, the agent exceeded the consent to enter which did not imply a consent to search.

Define: Evanescent Evidence

Evidence that might disappear quickly if the police took time to get a warrant - e.g., a fingernail scrape

Horton v. California

Fourth Amendment does not prohibit seizure of belongings not specifically listed in a warrant if items are in plain view and are found during a legal search for legal items. Not inadvertent.

Wyoming v. Houghton (1999)

If police have probable cause to search an automobile for illegal substances, then they may also search personal possessions of passengers in the car.

Maryland v. Pringle (2003)

In determining probable cause, the term "man of reasonable caution," which is best interpreted using the standard of an "objectively reasonable police officer"

Belton Rule

It permits police officers to make an immediate search of the passenger compartment of an automobile incident to the arrest of an occupant or "recent occupant." It applies when officers do not initiate contact with the occupant until AFTER the occupant has voluntarily exited the vehicle and walked away from it.

Arizona v. Hicks (1987)

Plain View Doctrine: restricted - officers cannot move evidence to find other evidence reiterated.

Cady v. Dombrowski

Police can search a disabled vehicle without a warrant when they had probable cause to believe a gun was in the car and that vandals or other persons might inadvertently discover the dangerous weapon

Maryland v. Wilson

Police may order passengers out of vehicles they stop for officer safety

Terry v. Ohio (1968)

Supreme Court decision endorsing police officers' authority to stop and frisk suspects on the streets when there is reasonable suspicion that they are armed and involved in criminal activity

Nix v. Williams (1984)

The Court established the inevitable discovery rule, allowing evidence discovered as the result of an illegal search to be introduced if it can be shown that the evidence would have been found anyway.

Brown v. Texas (1979)

United States Supreme Court case in which the Court determined that the defendant's arrest in El Paso County, Texas for a refusal to identify himself, after being seen and questioned in a high crime area, was not based on a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing and thus violated the Fourth Amendment.

Whren v. US

courts are not required to consider an officer's motive for stopping a vehicle as long as the officer had an objective basis for the stop. Because of Whren, pretext stops do not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Define: Plain View

items police happen to come across in the course of their duty

U.S. v. Ross (1982)

legal warrantless automobile search allows closed containers found in the trunk to be searched. Reliable informant -> Ross found with drugs in trunk, no warrant, but allowed.

Carroll v. US

police may stop and search a vehicle without a warrant if there is probable cause to believe that the vehicle is carrying individuals or articles that offend the law, and the vehicle is now or is about to be moved

Arizona v. Gant (2009)

requires law enforcement officers to demonstrate an actual and continuing threat to their safety posed by an arrestee, or a need to preserve evidence related to the crime of arrest from tampering by the arrestee, in order to justify a warrantless vehicular search incident to arrest conducted after the vehicle's recent occupants have been arrested and secured.

Arkansas v. Sullivan

state court may not put further restrictions on police conduct when considering federal constitutional provisions of the US Supreme Court

Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Association

the 4th amendment is applicable to the drug and alcohol testing mandated for authorization by the TRA's regulations