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College students suffer from an unfortunate lack of privacy rights in many situations. The university owns the dorm, so school officials can often search rooms at their own discretion. College students still have 4th Amendment rights that apply in other situations...
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No. The Supreme Court has never ruled that police must present the warrant when performing a search. The purpose of the warrant is to...
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No. We teach people that they have rights, and that these rights are secured by the principal documents that guarantee our civil liberties -- the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. An informed individual who invokes his constitutional protections is doing exactly what our nation's founders intended. They created these documents to...
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No. The courts have made it clear that police officers do not have to tell people that they can refuse to consent to a warrantless search. Also, contrary to the belief perpetuated by popular police television shows, a person will not be read their rights subsequent to being taken into custody. A person only needs to be Mirandized when...
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Everyone should be trained to assert their constitutional rights under the 4th Amendment in order to avoid the hassle and humiliation of police misconduct and illegal searches. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics report on citizen-police contacts...
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In addition to compromising your safety and the safety of others, driving drunk is one of the stupidest things you can do, and one of the easiest ways to create overwhelming legal problems for yourself. DUI laws vary from state to state, and they have become increasingly harsh over the years...
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This is one of those "it depends on the circumstances" questions. Police can obtain consent to search from anyone with control over the property; however any occupant of a residence can refuse consent, even if other occupants agree to a search. Unfortunately, you must be present in order to assert your refusal. The Supreme Court has ruled that...
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Videotaping or photographing police in public places is usually legal, so long as you don't interfere with their activities. Nonetheless, doing so will often get you arrested...
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Simply put, the number of arrests an officer makes is a major factor used to determine his job performance. Police officers know that the easiest way to make arrests is to find people in possession of illegal drugs, so they want to search everyone they can find...
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Yes. Police can, will, and often do lie; especially if it helps them make arrests. The rules regarding entrapment usually tip in favor of law-enforcement, so police won't hesitate to trick you into incriminating yourself or others...
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Unfortunately, many people get fooled by some version of this commonly used police officer's line: "Everything will be easier if you just cooperate". That's true to some extent -- it will make things much easier for the police officer who's trying to arrest you! -- but when it comes to you consenting to searches and answering incriminating questions, it couldn't be further from the truth...
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This is a tricky issue. The simple answer is that citizens who are minding their own business are not obligated to "show their papers" to police. In fact, there is no law requiring citizens to carry identification of any kind. Once you get passed the surface, however, things get much more complicated...
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Be aware that private security personnel outnumber police officers in the United States by three to one. As a result, you may be more likely to be confronted by a security guard than by a police officer. You must also be aware of the following places where security personnel (governmental or otherwise) are permitted to search you without a warrant...
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No. If a police officer asks your permission to search, you are under no obligation to consent. The main reason why officers ask is because they don't have enough evidence to search without your consent. Don't expect an officer to tell you of your right not to consent. Any time you consent to a search request you are naively waiving your constitutional rights.
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Unfortunately, police may sometimes search you even if you refuse consent. If they find anything illegal, you'll have to get a lawyer and fight it out in court, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the search will hold up...
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Written by Scott Morgan, FYR
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Wednesday, 23 April 2008 15:54 |
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Supreme Court Strikes A Blow To The Fourth AmendmentToday's Ruling Is Bad...But Not As Bad As It Sounds Today's Supreme Court ruling in Virginia v. Moore upheld the use of evidence seized during arrests that are illegal under state law. It's a terrible ruling to be sure, but it's hardly the deathblow to our 4th Amendment rights that some may assume. As always, we hope concerned citizens will take a moment to learn what the ruling does and does not do and remember that asserting your constitutional rights during police encounters remains the best choice. David L. Moore was arrested for driving on a suspended license, subsequently searched and found with crack. It turned out that under VA law he should have been issued a citation and not arrested, thus the search that followed his arrest (and turned up the crack) shouldn't actually have happened. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the evidence anyway, finding that when officers have valid probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, they may arrest and search the suspect, even if state laws prohibit arrests for that particular offense. As absurd as it is to uphold evidence seized in violation of state law and allow that evidence to be used in state court, my main concern with this ruling is that it will be widely misunderstood to permit illegal arrests and searches on a massive scale. It doesn't do that. We're not talking about any illegal arrest, we're talking about arrests for actual crimes that police can prove, but for which suspects aren't typically cuffed and taken downtown. So yes, the ruling is disgraceful, but the circumstances under which it applies are relatively narrow. The worst-case scenario here is that police may, in some cases, perform arrests for misdemeanor offenses that normally result in a ticket simply to justify a search of the suspect or his/her vehicle. That's awful, but it's not a new problem. This same concern has been voiced for some time with regards to the Court's rulings in Whren v. U.S. and Atwater v. Lago Vista, which combined permit police to stop vehicles for any observed infraction and perform arrests for any misdemeanor offense. The real problem here is that police have long been permitted by the Court to search the suspect (U.S. v. Robinson) and the passenger compartment (New York v. Belton) of the vehicle when any arrest is made. The policy is intended to provide for officer safety and prevent the destruction of evidence, yet an arrested suspect is typically handcuffed and rendered immobile before the search even takes place. Moreover, there's no rational basis to assume that someone arrested for driving with a suspended license, for example, would attempt an escape or try to destroy evidence to begin with. In sum, today's ruling possesses fundamental logical flaws, but doesn't expand police power in any substantial new directions. The worst aspects of the Moore decision are derived from prior bad rulings that we've already been living under for a long time. This Supreme Court is no friend of the 4th Amendment, but the damage they've inflicted is compounded when civil libertarians respond by prematurely eulogizing our constitutional rights. Anyone who needs a reminder that the 4th Amendment ain't dead should check out these glorious success stories.
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