Free Illegal Search Incidents Essay Sample
For the first scenario where officer Kojak found Barney driving while drunk and recklessly spending the car, Kojak and his colleague had no right to search the interior of the car because Barney had already admitted that he had been drinking and the evidence of crime that the police were to look for at that time were alcoholic drinks and not a gun. Therefore the motion that Barney moved so as to suppress the gun should be granted because the glove compartment was not within the scope of a search incident to an arrest, thus making statement (b) appropriate.
Statements (a) and (c) are wrong because the police had no right to seize the gun simple because the victim was handcuffed and also, they were not entitled to frisk without Barney's consent. Following this, the gun was found as part of an illegal search incident even if the police had a probable cause to arrest Barney, thus making statements (d) and (e) incorrect. A reference case is that which involved Bradley v. State, where by the evidence was suppressed following the claim that the police violated the defendant's fourth amendment.
As for the second scenario where police officers received unconfirmed information that a certain farmer was growing marijuana on his property, the police had no right to visit the area before getting a search warrant. This is following the reason that they did not have a probable cause and their entering the property without the owner's permission was violation of the fourth amendment. The plants were well protected by the hedges and were out of the public view. Thus the most appropriate and accurate statement for this scenario is (e); the farmer had a fourth amendment expectation because the plants fell within a curtilage area.
Statements (a) (b) and (c) are wrong because even if the plants are contraband, they were well obscured and could not be viewed plainly; low flying planes would not observe the plants with a warrant. Since we are informed that the evidence was not uncorroborated, the police had no adequate reasonable cause to look through the property thus rendering statement (d) inappropriate. The referenced legal case for this scenario is that which involve California v. Ciraolo where the judgment was reversed for the State.