1.

Determine how a reasonable suspicion can elevate to probable

cause to search for evidence.
- Reasonable suspicion is a step before probable cause. At the point of reasonable
suspicion, it appears that a crime may have been committed. The situation escalates
to probable cause when it becomes obvious that a crime has most likely been
committed.

2. Identify and explain when officers have obtained evidence legally

and how it may be used in court.
- Officers obtained evidence legally if there’s and valid search warrant must meet four
requirements: (1) the warrant must be filed in good faith by a law enforcement officer;
(2) the warrant must be based on reliable information showing probable cause to
search; (3) the warrant must be issued by a neutral and detached magistrate; and (4)
the warrant must state specifically the place to be searched and the items to be seized.

Officers can also conduct and obtain evidence legally without warrant:

 Consent. Police may conduct a search without a search warrant if they obtain

consent. Consent must be freely and voluntarily given by a person with a
reasonable expectation of privacy in the area or property to be searched.
 Plain View. An officer may seize evidence without a warrant if an officer is on the
premises lawfully and the evidence is found in plain view.
 Search incident to arrest. While conducting a lawful arrest, an officer may search
an individual's person and their immediate surroundings for weapons or other
items that may harm the officer. If a person is arrested in or near a vehicle, the
officer has the right to search the passenger compartment of that vehicle.
 Exigent Circumstances. Police are not required to obtain a search warrant if they
reasonably believe that evidence may be destroyed or others may be placed in
danger in the time it would take to secure the warrant.
 Automobile Exception. An officer may search a vehicle if they have a reasonable
belief that contraband is contained inside the vehicle.
 Hot Pursuit. Police may enter a private dwelling if they are in "hot pursuit" of a
fleeing criminal. Once inside a dwelling, police may search the entire area
without first obtaining a search warrant.
Admissible evidence any document, testimony, or tangible evidence used in a court of
law. Evidence is typically introduced to a judge or a jury to prove a point or element in a
case.

However, before evidence can even be used in a criminal case, it must be considered
“admissible”. Whether evidence is admissible or not depends on several different
factors that the court must analyze. Many different items and statements are often
excluded from evidence in a criminal trial because it is considered “inadmissible”.

There are two basic factors that are considered when determining whether evidence is
admissible or not:

Relevant – The evidence must prove or disprove an important fact in the criminal case.
If the evidence doesn’t relate to a particular fact, it is considered "irreelvant" and is
therefore inadmissible.

Reliable –  Reliability refers to the credibility of a source that is being used as evidence.
This usually applies to witness testimony.

Evidence inadmissibility is an extremely nuanced field of law. Although evidence rules

are driven by public policy, those same rules often have exceptions and those
exceptions can have exceptions. In general though, evidence is more likely to be
inadmissible if the evidence is:

 Unfairly Prejudicial – Evidence that arouses the jury’s outrage without adding any
material information is often excluded. For example, the picture of children
around a victim’s body is often ruled as being unfairly prejudicial.
 Wastes Time – In trials, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Juries
do not have to hear from twenty separate character witnesses to know that the
defendant is typically an honest person.
 Misleading – Evidence that could draw the jury’s attention away from the main
issues of the case are misleading and often excluded. For example, the
defendant’s homosexuality in a child molestation case is misleading since the
issue is whether the defendant had sex with a minor. The gender of the minor is
irrelevant.
 Hearsay – Testimony which is made outside of the court to prove the truth of the
matter is often excluded. For example, if a witness claims another witness said
the defendant hit the victim with a knife and the prosecutor wants to use the
testimony to prove that the defendant stabbed the victim, that testimony is
considered hearsay. However, the hearsay rule has over forty different
exceptions such as the dying declaration exception.
 Character – Evidence to prove that the defendant or the victim has a certain
personality trait and that the defendant acted according in consistently with that
 personality trait is often excluded. The exception is if the defendant introduces
character evidence first.
 Expert Testimony – Expert testimony can only be given by experts. "Lay"
witnesses cannot give expert testimony.
 Privileges – Evidence is often excluded if it came from a privileged source of
information. The most important privileges are between attorneys and clients, as
well as the right against self-incrimination.

3. Using the Supreme court decision KATZ- discuss why you believe
the case was decided in his favor.

Investigations to obtain information about a suspect's private activities, even if those

activities are conducted in public places or are obtained via electronic media or means,
are subject to the same standards of judicial process as searches of a suspect's private
property. The Court ruled that Katz was entitled to Fourth Amendment protection for his
conversations and that a physical intrusion into the area he occupied was unnecessary
to bring the Amendment into play. "The Fourth Amendment protects people, not
places," wrote Justice Potter Stewart for the Court. A concurring opinion by John
Marshall Harlan introduced the idea of a 'reasonable' expectation of Fourth Amendment
protection.

4. Provide an example where “exigent circumstances” may exist in a

criminal investigation.

Police Secure Drug Trafficker in Home While Waiting for Search Warrant
The U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, ruled in the 2002 appeal of United States of
America v. Vaatausili Mark Alaimalo, that:
“Even without a warrant, police may sometimes enter a home to secure it when exigent
circumstances exist. “[E]xigent circumstances are present when a reasonable person
[would] believe that entry … was necessary to prevent physical harm to the officers or
other persons, the destruction of relevant evidence, the escape of the suspect, or some
other consequence improperly frustrating legitimate law enforcement efforts.” [as quoted
from Bailey v. Newland, 263 F.3d 1022, 1033 (9th Cir. 2001).]
In the case against Alaimalo, law enforcement officers had tracked the defendant and
another suspect after they took possession of a large package of methamphetamine,
though the officers had replaced the drug with pseudomethamphetamine prior to its
delivery. The suspects went into a house with the package. The officers, knowing that
drug traffickers commonly open such packages and divide up the drug within about 10
minutes of receiving them, were concerned that both the suspects and the drugs would
disappear before they could obtain a warrant to enter Alaimalo’s home.
The officers moved quickly to secure the area, to prevent the suspects from
disappearing, as well as the destruction of evidence. They went to Alaimalo’s screen
door and announced themselves as “police.” They then entered the home to look
around for officer safety, and to ensure the evidence wasn’t being destroyed. In the
kitchen, officers found Alaimalo holding a knife, his wife and child with him. Remnants of
the drug-containing package were in plain view.
Alaimalo was taken into custody while the officers waited for a search warrant to be
issued. With the suspect’s consent, the home was searched, and with his help, officers
found the supposed methamphetamine, as well as another drug shipment.
Alaimalo was tried and convicted on six counts of methamphetamine trafficking. He was
sentenced to life in prison, plus 360 months. Alaimalo later appealed his conviction,
claiming that his lawyer should have argued the officers entered and conducted a
search illegally, and therefore no evidence found should have been admitted into trial.
On appeal, Alaimalo’s new attorney argued that the officers had no probable cause to
believe the drugs were in the residence, and that, without probable cause, there can be
no exigent circumstance. The prosecution linked the probable cause to the fact that the
agents themselves had intercepted the package, replaced the drugs, then followed the
suspect after he picked up the package to his home.
In this example of exigent circumstances, the appellate court ruled against the
defendant, supporting the trial court’s ruling, based on the prior definition of exigent
circumstance handed down by the federal court, as quoted above.

5. Discuss and provide examples where there is an “expectation of

privacy” for citizens.

Expectation of privacy is a legal test which is crucial in defining the scope of the
applicability of the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States
Constitution. It is related to, but is not the same thing as a right of privacy, a much
broader concept which is found in many legal systems.

Examples of places where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy are a

person's residence or hotel room, and public places which have been specifically
provided by businesses or the public sector in order to ensure privacy, such as public
restrooms, private portions of jailhouses, or a phone booth.

6. Compare and contrast the similarities and differences of

contraband and evidence.

 
Contraband is “any property that is illegal for a person to acquire or possess under a
statute, ordinance or rule”. Ohio Revised Code § 2901.01(13). Or as Black’s Law
Dictionary says, contraband is “property whose possession is unlawful”. Cocaine and
child pornography are both contraband; it is illegal to possess either one. No one,
therefore, has the right to possess contraband, under any circumstances. (Police and
court systems obviously possess contraband of varying types, but that’s not personal
possession; it’s possession for law enforcement purposes, basically, and so is not illegal
. . . at least not unless and until a police officer or a member of the court appropriates
some of it for personal use).

Contraband is obviously evidence of a crime, but evidence of a crime is not necessarily

contraband. All kinds of things can be evidence of a crime: John Doe’s computer, a gun,
forged documents, a cell phone, etc. The evidence of a crime category is a residual
category that captures items that can be used to convict someone of a crime but the
possession of which is not illegal in and of itself.

If, as I assume, John Doe’s pirated material was contraband, then it will never be
returned to him, just as child pornography is never returned to the person on whose
computer it was found. If we assume, for the purposes of analysis, that it does not
constitute contraband but is merely evidence of a crime, then it is possible for John Doe
to get it back. As I explained in a post I did a couple of years ago, someone in his
position can file a motion for return of property; such a motion asks the court to require
the police to give back items they seized as evidence.