tell me what part I disagree with again? y'all sure have a knack for making things up
I don't condone "unreasonable" search and seizures. Police officers using skills of observation to hone in on criminal activity is not a violation of the 4th amendment. They still have to legally obtain evidence.
I don't condone "unreasonable" search and seizures. Police officers using skills of observation to hone in on criminal activity is not a violation of the 4th amendment. They still have to legally obtain evidence.
Legal Standards
The Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures by police officers. The Constitution provides that
[t]he right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[3]
The United States Supreme Court has recognized that “[n]o right is held more sacred . . . than the right of every individual to [be] . . . free from [the] restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law.”[4] The framers of the United States Constitution specifically drafted the Fourth Amendment “to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials.”[5] The Fourth Amendment generally requires that all searches and seizures be made pursuant to a warrant based upon probable cause. Accordingly, on numerous occasions, the United States Supreme Court has examined a variety of stop, search, and frisk issues that are relevant to determining whether a Fourth Amendment violation exists.
In the landmark decision of Terry v. Ohio,[6] the Supreme Court confronted the issue of whether to create a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause and warrant requirements to permit a police officer to briefly stop a citizen, question him, and frisk him to ascertain whether he possesses a weapon that could endanger the officer. In upholding the “stop and frisk” procedure employed by an Ohio police officer, the Court concluded that the appropriate constitutional standard should be “reasonable suspicion” rather than probable cause.[7]
To justify a stop under the Supreme Court’s Terry decision, a police officer must have “a reasonable suspicion” of some wrongdoing. In determining reasonableness, an officer “must be able to point to specific and articulable facts” that warrant the governmental intrusion; reliance on “inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or [a] ‘hunch’ ” is not permissible.[8] Furthermore, the scope of any resulting police search must be narrowly tailored to match the original reason for the stop. The Court emphasized that a search must always be “strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justif[ied] its initiation.”[9] In Terry, the Court identified the police officer’s safety as the primary purpose for the search, and concluded that a frisk is permissible if “a reasonably prudent man in the circumstances would be warranted in the belief that his safety or that of others was in danger.”[10] However, this case established the legal precedent that police officers could draw conclusions based on their experiences to ascertain if an alleged suspect’s conduct is an indication of criminal activity.[11] If a police officer surmises that an individual’s conduct is ambiguous, then the officer can briefly detain the person and conduct a limited search for the safety of him/herself and others.[12]
Moreover, police officers do not infringe upon an individual’s constitutional rights if they approach alleged suspects in a public location, and inquire whether he or she would be willing to answer some questions.[13] However, the Court in Florida v. Royer further explained that
[t]he person approached . . . need not answer any question put to him; . . . he may decline to listen to the questions at all and may go on his way. . . . He may not be detained even momentarily without reasonable, objective grounds for doing so; and his refusal to listen or answer does not, without more, furnish those grounds. . . . If there is no detention—no seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment—then no constitutional rights have been infringed.[14]
In subsequent cases, most court rulings began to allow police officers’ interpretations of signs of alleged criminal activity as a foundation for the required degree of reasonable suspicion.[15] For example, in United States v. Cortez,[16] the United States Supreme Court granted more deference to a police officer’s perceptions of the totality of the circumstances involving an alleged suspect, when accessing whether the requisite degree of reasonable suspicion existed prior to the stop and frisk episode:[17]
The idea that an assessment of the whole picture must yield a particularized suspicion contains two elements, each of which must be present before a stop is permissible. First, the assessment must be based upon all of the circumstances. The analysis proceeds with various objective observations, information from police reports, . . . and consideration of the modes or patterns of operation of certain kinds of lawbreakers. From these data, a trained officer draws inferences and makes deductions—inferences and deductions that might well elude an untrained person. The process does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities. . . . Finally, the evidence thus collected must be seen and weighed not in terms of library analysis by scholars, but as understood by those versed in the field of law enforcement. The second element contained in the idea that an assessment of the whole picture must yield a particularized suspicion is the concept that the process described must raise a suspicion that the particular individual being stopped is engaged in wrongdoing.[18]
The Supreme Court granted a greater degree of reliance on police officers’ assessments of potential criminal activity in a drug courier profile case, United States v. Sokolow.[19] Here, the majority considered the defendant’s overall behavior and activities that preceded the stop and frisk. The Court concluded that law enforcement authorities satisfied Terry’s “reasonable suspicion” requirement, when the agents determined that the defendant’s actions corresponded to the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) drug courier profile.[20]
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the United States Supreme Court has made it's rulings, I concur with them.
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the United States Supreme Court has made it's rulings, I concur with them.
How about being a white cop?
Apparently that is probable cause for being a racist according to Obama.
this request will be better served for me once it's actually a law, because it won't take long. we're modeling this bill after a few bassackwards European nations that have arrested priests for anti-gay (aka reading the scriptures) rhetoric, protestors for pro-Nazi sympathies, and english blokes that blogged about not being happy that muslims have moved into their neighborhoods.
so once this is law it you should hold your breath since it won't take long to exhale
btw, again, a man who really does believe he is a leader for personal rights cannot see the potential destruction of this bill? really?
hno:barman keep only equating personal rights with legalizing pot since that's obviously the only application you can type about intelligently and without skepticism
