The paper highlights six prominent cases of their time and causes of seizure and warrant of these cases. The facts involved in cases and courts ruling in making decisions are explained in the paper. It focuses on Mapp v. Ohio, Terry v. Ohio, Tennessee v. Garner, Carroll v. U.S., Graham v.
Connor, and U.S. v Leon. According to the 4th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, people have the right to feel secure in their homes and without proper court consent police should not be allowed to breach their personal property. Furthermore, a search warrant is to be issued by the court if there is any probable cause about the evidence being in a particular place. Courts make decision and judge have the authority to implement constitutional laws to real life situations. Though there are thirteen exceptions to search warrant about the 4th amendment. Exigent circumstances, stop and frisk, search incident to arrest, custodial, plain view, vehicle, and border are few of them.
The Supreme Court of United States decided to dispose of the evidence collected by violating the 4th amendment while making a decision for Mapp v Ohio case. Mapp v Ohio case was reported in March 1961 as a landmark case in criminal procedure. The case is about Dolree Mapp, an employee of Shon Birns Company, who was reported to be involved in illegal gambling rackets. The officials were tipped by an unknown source about the evidence available at Dolree Mapp’s apartment such as betting slips and other illegal equipment. Police confronted Mapp and asked her to let them in to conduct a search, but she refused on account of demanding a search warrant issued by Court. When police began the search, they found out all the claimed evidence against Mapp. Mapp was arrested, but she appealed her case to the court about violation of the 4th amendment. She made the point that evidence collected from her house was searched without a warrant and hence is illegal. According to her, she could not be held accountable for the evidence which was collected without a warrant. As a result, the U.S Court decided for Dolree Mapp and stated that the officials are bound to exclude all the evidence collected by violating the 4th amendment of the U.S. Constitution (Price, 2010).
The case of Terry v Ohio in 1968 was handled by the Supreme Court of the U.S, where they supported the prohibition of the 4th amendment in the case where police have a strong notion of someone committing a crime. The exception to 4th amendment in the Terry v Ohio was stop and frisk, where Cleveland detective observed suspects and took action against them. The evidence collected was not disposed of because of violation of the 4th amendment. It was supported by the thirteen exceptions mentioned in the 4th amendment. The detective believed that suspects were going to be involved in a robbery, and to avoid the mishap he decided to take action against them. The officer did not have any probable cause to search the suspects but still decided to stop the suspects and search them without warrant for the sake of the safety of others and himself. The Supreme Court stated that detective had enough strong suspicion to conduct a search without a warrant which was taken in detective’s favor. But the Supreme Court made it clear that police should always avail a warrant before search and seizure keeping in mind the 4th amendment of U.S Constitution. Therefore, the court decided by action taken by a detective on the spot of searching the suspects but warned to be careful next time (Garrison, 2014).
Tennessee v Garner was the case reported in 1985, where the law enforcement officials shot a fleeing suspected individual. According to the 4th amendment, the officials are not allowed to use a deadly weapon against a suspect without any probable cause. The officers in the Tennessee v Garner case shot a suspected felon and were held accountable in the Supreme Court. Officers were asked to handle a suspected burglary where they shot the victim who was seen escaping the scene. The victim did not have any weapon and was asked by police to stop, but he did not and police fired at him and killed him. The constitutional rights of the victim were violated by the police since police shot him even after knowing that the victim was empty handed. The issue before the court was whether it was allowed for the officials to use a weapon against a suspect under the 4th amendment. The court ruled that state has prohibited the use of a deadly weapon against nonviolent suspects. However, it was not justified completely whether officials should be allowed to shoot a suspect on suspicion of carry a weapon that would be harmful to the officials and others in the vicinity or not (Jacob, 2016).
Caroll v U.S case is another case where 4th amendment of the U.S Constitution was questioned. George Caroll was a dealer who was involved in supplying illegal liquor and officials found illegal liquor in the rear seat of his car. George Caroll along with his partner John Kiro was stopped by the officials to conduct a warrantless search of the car. The Law enforcement officials conducted a warrantless search of the car and collected 68 bottles of illegal liquor. The Volstead Act of 1919 prohibits the sale and production of alcohol and as a result, federal prohibition agents were in a search of such dealers who were involved in dealing alcohol. Because of the Volstead Act of 1919, an exception to the 4th amendment was considered. The law enforcement officials were allowed to search the properties without warrants. Hence, Caroll appeal to U.S Supreme Court was ruled out on the basis that exception to the 4th amendment was acceptable in the particular case. The Supreme Court ruled that federal agents or officials have the authority to conduct a warrantless search. The rule was considered as automobile exception to the search requirement. However, the court made it clear that whenever obtaining a warrant from the court is possible, the officials must obtain it (Study.com, 2016).
Graham v. Connor was another case in 1989 that involved the violation of the 4th amendment of the U.S Constitution. Graham was a diabetic patient who asked his friend Berry to take him to a store, to get an orange juice. But when he reached the store, Graham saw the store was crowded and left the store immediately and asked Berry to stop at another place. The police officer Connor found it suspicious and followed Graham’s car and forcefully stopped him and asked questions. Based on suspicion, Connor used his authority to stop Graham and his friend Berry and asked questions regarding their immediate departure from the store. After finding that Graham had nothing to do with the scene at the store, Graham was released. Graham filed a case against Connor for violating his constitutional rights and secured right to move freely by forcing him and asking him unnecessary questions. However, Graham’s claim was rejected by the court and declared it to be an error. The Supreme Court ruled that unreasonable stopping of a free citizen and excessive usage of force are properly considered under the 4th amendment is highly prohibited (Kessler, 2013).
U.S v Leon was a case reported in 1984 about the drug dealers Patsy Stewart and Armando Sanchez. Police started canvassing Stewart and Armando homes and conducted a proper visual search of their homes. They found out the involvement of Ricardo Del Castillo and Albert Leon. Therefore, police targeted their homes to collect further evidence on investigation. By visual evidence collected, police asked the court for a warrant. A judge issued the search warrant, but it turned out to be invalid because of the affidavit not being enough according to the judge. The insufficient affidavit did not form the probable cause mandatory to issue a search warrant. The evidence obtained was considered because of the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. In the exclusionary rule, evidence collected without a valid warrant is not considered but in Leon’s case, the court ruled out an exception to the exclusionary rule and considered the evidence collected by the police against Leon (Thomas, 2009).
It is concluded after considering all six cases, the violation of 4th amendment of U.S constitution was highly not acceptable by the Supreme Court except for certain situations where the Supreme Court ruled out exceptions but made it clear as well that usage of the warrant is mandatory where possible.
References
Garrison, A. H. (2014). NYPD Stop and Frisk, Perceptions of Criminals, Race and the Meaning of Terry v Ohio: A Content Analysis of Floyd, et al. v City of New York. utgers Race & The Law Review, 1565, 15(1), 65.
Jacob, K. J. (2016). From Garner to Graham and beyond: police liability for use of deadly force - Ferguson case study. Chicago-Kent Law Review, (1), 325(1), 325.
Kessler, R. G. (2013). Graham v. Connor (1989). Washington: CQ Press, A Division of Sage Publications, Inc.
Price, P. J. (2010). Mapp v. Ohio Revisited: A Law Clerk's Diary. Journal Of Supreme Court History 35.1 (2010): 54-70. Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 June 2016., 35(1), 54-70.
Study.com. (2016). Carroll v. United States: Case Brief. Retrieved from http://study.com/academy/lesson/carroll-v-united-states-case-brief.html
Thomas Y. D. (2009). Leon, United States v. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
