Summary: Myers V. The United States

The 8th amendment states, “ Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Which brings me to the case of Thompson vs. Oklahoma. The debate is on whether or not capital punishment should be given to minors. On one hand, some may argue that Thompson should have been charged with capital punishment because “his acts were heinous and cruel” (Pearson Prentice Hall: n.d.). On the other hand, others such as Oklahoma argue that it is a violation of the 8th amendment under “cruel and unusual punishment.” This creates the argument of Thompson vs. Oklahoma.

1.Probable cause is a set of facts surrounding a specific circumstances that leads a “reasonable person” to believe an individual is committing, has committed or is about to commit a crime. Probable cause is required in the instances of an arrest, search and seizure and the issuance of a warrant. To ESTABILISH reasonable cause the officer can use any trustworthy information. For example the office could use his/her experience, informant information, first hand observations or knowledge, victim reports, anonymous tips, or hearsay.

On the date of February 4th, 1965, believing that the Petitioner had been using public pay phones to transmit illegal gambling wagers from Los Angeles to Miami and Boston, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began their surveillance into the life of the Petitioner, Charles Katz. Fifteen days later on February 19th, 1965 FBI agents working the case against the Petitioner had gained access to a phone booth within a set of phone booths that the petitioner frequented on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, and summarily recorded the petitioner’s side of conversations he was having on the phone within a booth nearby. This surveillance lasted until the 25th (excluding February 22, as no evidence was obtained due to technical difficulties) the date of the petitioner’s arrest, which took place immediately after he exited the same set of phone booths. In this case there are two major constitutional questions which need to be addressed: (1) whether evidence obtained by attaching an electronic listening and recording device to the top of a public telephone booth used and occupied by the Petitioner is gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and (2) whether the search warrant used by the FBI officers in this case violated the Fourth Amendment to the constitution in that the warrant was (a) not founded on probable cause; (b) an evidentiary search warrant and (c) a general search

Terry v. Ohio is an important case in law enforcement. What did the Court say in this case, and why is it important?

The Dusky V. United States was a case that began to question the competency of people that have committed crimes. On September 10, 1958 Milton R. Dusky was charged with unlawfully transporting, a 15 year old, across state lines from Missouri to Kansas with two other young boys, Leonard Dischart, age 13, and Richard H. Nixon, age 16. The young girl had known Nixon before she knew Dischart; therefore, she accepted the invitation when the two boys and the defendant asked if she needed a ride to the drug store. Dusky and the boys, after leaving the drug store, had decided to go for drinks, that Dusky had provided. Intoxicated, they debated whether or not they should have sexual relations with the young girl with “the type of girl she is.” Returning

When a person takes steps toward the commission of a crime and has a specific intent to commit the crime, but for unforeseen reasons is unable to complete the crime the person has committed the crime of Attempt (Jirard, 2009). In the case of the State of Indiana versus Donald J. Haines, emergency personnel including two police officers [Dennis and Hayworth] along with emergency medical technicians [Garvey and Robinson] responded to Mr. Haines’s apartment for a report of a possible suicide that just occurred. When officers Dennis and Hayworth arrived at Haines’s apartment they discovered him lying face down in a pool of blood. Officer Dennis noticed that both of Haines’s wrists were cut and were bleeding. When Haines heard the paramedics he stood up, and began screaming at Dennis that he has AIDS and that he should be left to die. Dennis advised Haines that he was there to help him, and Haines told Dennis that he wanted to fuck him so that he could give him AIDS. Haines than told Dennis that he was going to utilize his wounds to spray blood on him, and began to jerk back and forth causing his infected blood to get into Dennis’ mouth and eyes. Haines told Dennis that he could not deal with having AIDS, but that he was going to make him deal with it.

Facts: Mr. Masciale was introduced to government agent Marshall by a government informer, Kowel. Mr. Masciale and Kowel had known each other for about four years and Mr. Masciale was unaware that Kowel’s was a part of some undercover activities. Therefore, Kowel introduced Marshall to Masciale as a big narcotics buyer. At the trial both Marshall and petitioner had testified concerning the ensuring conversation (supreme.justia.com. n.d.). Marshall stated in his testimony that he wanted to talk about buying a large quantity of high-grade narcotics and that if Masciale was not interested, then their conversation would be over.

During the 1970’s, Connecticut was a very prosperous state with growing numbers of minorities. Many of these minorities would tend to live in the same neighborhoods which would lead to other races, like whites, leaving an area and moving to a new area away from these minorities. We learned about white flight in The Children in Room E4, but this has been relevant for many decades. These whites may have not moved out of state, but just away from the minority neighborhoods to places like the suburbs. This tended to cause property values to decrease in the minority neighborhoods, making it cheaper for more minorities to move in, but also harder for the minorities to move to areas where white people may be living like the suburbs. With decreased property values beginning to happen, the property taxes were also beginning to decrease. This is what led to the development of the case Horton v. Meskill. Also during this time, the United States was barely a decade old from all of the segregation it had experienced during the 1960’s. the segregation had an influence on why whites were moving away from the minorities, which was causing these public school property tax funding’s to be low. Even though segregation de jure was outlawed at this time, there were still people living by segregation de facto. The people did not realize this at this time in the 1970’s, but it eventually built up momentum and became relevant in the Connecticut court case Sheff v. O’Neill.

As children, we have all stepped that “boundary” between right and wrong. From stealing money to shoplifting to fighting, we have all made our parents frustrated, made poor decisions, and perhaps, even made a egregious mistake. However, when does stepping that “boundary” become irremediable? Can the government punish minors under the same criteria they do with adults? And most importantly, what does the United States Constitution say? These are all questions that both the Missouri Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court had to consider when they dived into the case of Roper v. Simmons. To provide a little historical

In the Case of Missouri v. Seibert, a mother named Patrice Seibert was convicted of second degree murder. Patrice Seibert had a son named Jonathan who was twelve years old and had cerebral palsy. Jonathan Seibert suddenly died in his sleep, and his mother thought that she would be held responsible for his sudden death. Ms. Seibert then devised a plan with her two older sons and their friends. She wanted to cover up the death of Jonathan, so she conspired with her sons and their friends to cover up the death by burning down their mobile home. Donald Rector was a mentally ill individual who stayed with the Seibert’s and later died as the home went up in flames. Several days later, Seibert was taken into the police station and questioned about the mysterious mobile home fire. While being interrogated, the officer waved Ms. Seibert’s Miranda rights. She was questioned for thirty to forty minutes before she was given a break. While being questioned, the officer hoped that Ms. Seibert would voluntarily confess to the crimes that had taken place. After her break, she was then questioned a second time. This time, the officer turned on a recorder and then read Ms. Seibert her Miranda Warnings, and the officer also obtained a signed waiver of rights from Seibert.

Even If This Court Was To Find That Ms. Brie’s Authority to Consent Was Ambiguous, This Court Must Still Find that the District Court Properly Denied the Defendant-Appellant’s Motion.

Background: The (Snyder v. Phelps) case dealt with the First Amendment and what it protects. A congregation of the Westboro Baptist Church was protesting Matthew Snyder’s funeral and caused the family a lot of emotional distress. Matthew Snyder was a former Marine who died while serving a tour in Iraq. The protestors were holding up signs that said, “Semper Fi fags, God Hates the USA, Thank God for IEDS.” (Lee Epstein, Pgs 469-72). The Westboro Baptist church has picketed many military funerals. They resent that the military will allow homosexuals to fight for their country. In June 2006, the father, Albert Snyder filed the lawsuit against the Westboro Church. He claimed that the protest caused the family intense emotional distress and that the church intentionally meant to inflect the distress. The Westboro Baptist church said that what they did was protected under the First Amendment. Although this is the first court case that’s been brought up against the Westboro Baptist church and made it to the Supreme Court. They’ve done forms of protests for many years. For example they’ve picketed anything they believe to have in relation to homosexuality. They’ve even protested some of the Kansas

5. No. The Supreme Court does not have original jurisdiction to issue writs of mandamus.

“At what point do we take personal attacks, and permit those, as opposed to -- I fully accept you’re entitled, in some circumstances, to speak about any political issue you want. But where is the line between doing that, and creating hardship for an individual?” –Justice Sonia Sotomayor. In the case of Snyder V. Phelps, Two very passionate sides debated just that. The Snyder family accused Phelps, or Westboro, of the tort claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress, after Westboro picketed Phelps’ son’s funeral. Westboro disputed this, claiming their protests were protected under The First Amendment.

Hippocrates, directed his fellow physicians “to help and do no harm” (McCormick, 2013) which basically brought to the bare the fact that, considerations of respect for persons and for justice have been present in the development of societies from the earliest times.