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Searches and Seizures Courts' language discussing what's generally reasonable during a search or a seizure. Sections below deal with various sub-categories of this important topic, but this section contains the language that deals with policy, definitions and general considerations of the issue. Pages: ‹1› ‹2› ‹3› ‹4› ‹5› ‹6›
In Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 461-462 (1971), a plurality of this Court stated: "The word 'automobile' is not a talisman in whose presence the Fourth Amendment fades away and disappears." By upholding the search in this case, the Court not only ignores that principle, but creates another talisman to overcome the requirements of the Fourth Amendment -- the term "inventory."
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...[T]he government's emphasis upon supply side interdiction apparently has not reduced teenage use in recent years. Compare R. Perl, CRS Issue Brief for Congress, Drug Control: International Policy and Options CRS-1 (Dec. 12, 2001) (supply side programs account for 66% of the federal drug control budget), with Partnership for a Drug-Free America, 2001 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study: Key Findings 1 (showing increase in teenage drug use in early 1990's, peak in 1997, holding steady thereafter); 2000-2001 PRIDE National Summary: Alcohol, Tobacco, Illicit Drugs, Violence and Related Behaviors, Grades 6 thru 12 (Apr. 5, 2002), http://www.pridesurveys.com/us00.pdf (slight rise in high school drug use in 2000-2001); Department of Health and Human Services, L. Johnston et al., Monitoring the Future: National Results on Adolescent Drug Use, Overview of Key Findings 5 (2001). Table 1 (lifetime prevalence of drug use increasing over last 10 years).
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Terry permits a brief stop of a person whose suspicious conduct leads an officer to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot, and a patdown search of the person for weapons when the officer is justified in believing that the person may be armed and presently dangerous. This protective search -- permitted without a warrant and on the basis of reasonable suspicion less than probable cause -- is not meant to discover evidence of crime, but must be strictly limited to that which is necessary for the discovery of weapons which might be used to harm the officer or others. If the protective search goes beyond what is necessary to determine if the suspect is armed, it is no longer valid under Terry and its fruits will be suppressed.
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The rationale of the plain view doctrine is that if contraband is left in open view and is observed by a police officer from a lawful vantage point, there has been no invasion of a legitimate expectation of privacy and thus no "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment -- or at least no search independent of the initial intrusion that gave the officers their vantage point.
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It makes sense, then, to treat a sniff as the search that it amounts to in practice, and to rely on the body of our Fourth Amendment cases [...] in deciding whether such a search is reasonable. As a general proposition, using a dog to sniff for drugs is subject to the rule that the object of enforcing criminal laws does not, without more, justify suspicionless Fourth Amendment intrusions. Since the police claim to have had no particular suspicion that Caballes was violating any drug law, this sniff search must stand or fall on its being ancillary to the traffic stop that led up to it.
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