UTAH v. STRIEFF
Reading over UTAH v. STRIEFF I will expound on some facts of the case that impacted some of the decision making in police administration. Narcotics detective Douglas Fackrell was surveilling a South Salt Lake City residence due to the anonymous tip on suspicious drug activity. Based on his surveillance he determined that the resident was drug dealing. Detective Fackrell saw Strieff leaving the residence. He identified and detained Strieff to answer questions about what was going on inside the house. He ran a check and discovered he had an outstanding arrest warrant for a traffic violation. Detective Fackrell searched him and found little baggies of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia only minutes after the illegal
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Assuming but not determining Detective Fackrell did not have enough grounds to stop Strieff at first, but when he was made known of the arrest warrant; it attenuated the connection with the unlawful stop and the evidence detained from Strieff incident to his arrest. He discovered the drugs only in the minutes after his illegal stop. Although he had a valid warrant, it had nothing to do with the discovery of evidence. The warrant only allowed Detective Fackrell to arrest Strieff, but his search of Strieff’s incident to that arrest was considered lawful. The detective was careless in nature and called his judgment to be questioned. Did he violate Strieff’s Fourth Amendment rights? Although his conducted an unlawful stop, his conduct was lawful, and there are no signs that the stop was part of any systemic or police misconduct. At this point, Detective Fackrell’s judgment should not constitute a warrant suppression. He was not there just to poke at Shierff. He was there to gather information about his investigation. Strieff says otherwise due to the absence of probable cause.
The court determined a baseline or how they were going to exclude evidence based on the Fourth Amendment violation. Dismissal is only necessary when the benefits outweigh its costs. The exclusionary rule is very vital in determining if the police officer’s conduct was unlawful. By excluding the illegally obtained evidence, courts minimized the temptation of the
Arguments are powerful in the United State on the pros and cons of the exclusionary rule. The exclusionary rule is a tool that is used to defend the Fourth Amendment. Is an individual most powerful tool. The exclusionary rule helps ensure the unnecessary search and seizure. Another pros will be shifts the burden of proof away from the individual. There’s a term used that it is powerful when it comes to the exclusionary rule will be “innocent until proven guilty”. They are guilty when you are being
Whether a law enforcement officer was justified in acting in the absence of a warrant depends on the “totality of circumstances.” The United States Supreme Court uses a “careful case-by-case” approach to determine whether circumstances rose to the required level of exigency. Recognized exigent circumstances that justify warrantless entry may include, but are not limited to: entering to provide emergency aid to someone inside, pursuant to an immediate threat to officer safety, in “‘hot pursuit’ of a fleeing suspect,” “to put out a fire and investigate its cause,” and to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence of a serious crime. While circumstances that present the requisite exigency to justify a warrantless search differ, “in each
The Fourth Amendment is one of the most important constitutional protections; however, several procedural issues may arise. As seen in this case, the validity of the search warrant was questioned as well as the extent of the protection afforded. A search may be illegal even if a search warrant was issued; probable cause is
• Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is primarily concentrated in four areas: 1) defining “searches”; 2) the Warrant Requirement, in which warrantless searches are semantically precluded except in specific and tightly constricted situations; 3) the Probable Cause Requirement, whose exclusive provisions are closely associated with the Warrant Requirement’s proscription of police inquiries into same; and, 4) the exclusionary rule, which presumptively excludes any information or evidence gathered in violation of the preceding two (Rickless, 2005).
4. Evidence illegally obtained by the police in violation of the Fourth Amendment will be excluded from trial whether or not the police acted in good faith?
In an 8-to-1 decision, the Court held that the search undertaken by the officer was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and that the weapons seized could be introduced into evidence against Terry. The Court found that the officer acted on more than an “hunch” and that “a reasonably prudent
According to Encyclopedia Britannica the exclusionary rule, in American law, states that any evidence seized unlawfully by the police is in violation of the Fourth Amendment (The Editors of The Encyclopedia Britannica). The exclusionary rule was created to exclude any evidence obtained during an illegal search to be used in federal and state courts. The principal behind it is to protect the constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendment that may be threatened by police misconduct. Also to secure
If the trial judge did not exclude the evidence from the trial, then the Supreme Court must overturn the conviction. In some cases, the accused will be retried without the use of the illegally obtained evidence. In other cases, there will not be a retrial because the illegally obtained evidence was the basis of the prosecution's case. The story of the birth and evolution of the exclusionary rule is complex and demonstrates the unique problems the Supreme Court has had to face when interpreting the Fourth Amendment."
Individual states do not need to follow all interpretations of the U.S. Supreme Court in the area of criminal procedure. The states must only abide by what the Supreme Court sets as minimum thresholds for constitutional guarantees. The states are not precluded from developing workable rules governing arrest, searches and seizures to meet “the practical demands of effective criminal investigation and law enforcement.”
The Fourth Amendment is the basis for several cherished rights in the United States, and the right to the freedom of unreasonable searches and seizures is among them. Therefore, it would seem illegitimate- even anti-American for any law enforcement agent to search and seize evidence unlawfully or for any court to charge the defendant with a guilty verdict established on illegally attained evidence. One can only imagine how many people would have been sitting in our jails and prisons were it not for the introduction of the exclusionary rule.
There has been an argument among legal experts that the provisions of the exclusionary rule are merely to deter the misconduct of the law enforcement personnel. In light of this, most courts do not adhere to the provisions of the exclusionary rule as it is viewed as an extension of the Fourth Amendment. Ideally, Police officers deem the law as an obstacle on their endeavors to
Case Procedural History: Roy Caballes tried to suppress the drugs seized in the stop by claiming that the state troopers did not have probable cause to search his vehicle. The trial judge denied the motion to suppress the seized marijuana. The trial judge held that the use of the drug dog did not prolong the duration
In the case of Illinois vs. Wardlow, many factors contributed to Wardlow’s arrest. Starting with the facts of the case, on September 9, 1995 Sam Wardlow fled after seeing police vehicles covering an area in Chicago where it was known to have high drug trafficking. Two police officers spotted Wardlow, Officers Nolan and Officer Harvey, and once Officer Nolan caught up with Mr. Wardlow, Officer Nolan proceeded to conduct a pat-down search of only the outer layer of clothing, or a “Terry Stop.” Officer Nolan was well aware that in this area, there was almost always a weapon on a suspect that was involved with some type of drug transaction. After conducting the frisk, Officer Nolan squeezed the opaque colored bag that Mr. Wardlow was
“The purpose of the exclusionary rule is not to redress the injury to the privacy of the search victim . . . . Instead, the rule's prime purpose is to deter future unlawful police conduct and thereby effectuate the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures” (Estreicher & Weick, 2010, p. 4). They are saying is that the need for the rule is to deter illegal techniques that police use to obtain evidence, not to simply give more rights to the defendant. As Estreicher and Weick pointed out, “all of the cases since Wolf requiring the exclusion of illegal evidence have been base on the necessity for an effective deterrent to illegal police action” (Estreicher & Weick, 2010, p. 4). So instead of looking at the exclusionary rule as the end-all-right that citizens are
Facts: The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and states that an officer to have both probable cause and a search warrant in order to search a person or their property. There are several exceptions to this requirement. One exception to this is when an officer makes an arrest; the officer can search an arrestee and the area within his immediate control without first obtaining a search warrant. This case brings forth the extent of an officer’s power in searching an arrestee’s vehicle after he has been arrested and placed in the back of a patrol car. On August 25, 1999, the police responded to an anonymous tip of drug activity at a particular residence. When they arrived on scene, Rodney Gant answered the door