Kendall Kramer
Case Brief #1
Kyllo v. United States (2001) 533 U.S. 27 (2001)
Judges
Judges involved in this case included Rehnquist, O’Connor, Scalia, Stevens, Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, Souter and Breyer. Opinion judges included Scalia, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg and Breyer. Dissenting judges included Stevens, Rehniquist, O’Connor and Kennedy.
Facts
After there had been suspicion that Danny Kyllo was growing marijuana in his Oregon home, the United States Department of the Interior used a thermal imaging device to observe the amount of heat being produced in his home. This device can only detect the presence of heat and does not invade personal privacy. After finding that the thermal imagining device showed high levels of heat in the home,
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Procedural Facts
Kyllo tried to have the evidence that was found in his home suppressed as he felt his rights to the Fourth Amendment were being violated. However, the Ninth Circuit decided that the use of a thermal image device did not violate the Fourth Amendment. This decision was then reversed. The Court then determined whether or not there was cause for the search warrant without the use of the imaging device. After rehearing the case, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the court in stating that the use of a thermal imaging device is not in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Current Courts Opinion
In a 5-4 opinion the Supreme Court decides that the Governments use of a thermal imagining device that is not available to the public to gather information of a home that would be unknown without using the device is a violation of the Fourth Amendment search and is deemed unreasonable. The majority opinion argued that a person has the right to privacy in their own home. This argument is then rejected. Judge Scalia argued that there is a fine line when it comes to the Fourth Amendment and because they did not “enter” the home, it was not an invasion of privacy. The Dissent judges presented that, although a thermal imaging device was used, the tool did not invade Kyllos privacy as it only gathered heat
“The court thus appeared to adopt a categorical rule barring the seizure of any contraband detected by an officer through the sense of touch during a patdown search for
Kelo v. City of New London was a case that peaked my interest. To me, this is a classic case of government overreach. Let us start from the beginning. In 1997 Susette Kelo purchased a home in the historic neighborhood of Fort Trumbull in New London, Connecticut. She had always dreamed of owning a home on the water and painstakingly restored it to it 's former glory.
On October 16th the United States Supreme Court will hear the arguments concerning the Kansas V. Cheever cirme. Scott Cheever was convicted of murder and drug useage on January 19th 2009. Cheever killed Greenwood County sheriff Matthew Samuels at the residence of the Coopers in Hilltop, Kansas. Sheriff Samuels was going to the Cooper 's residence on a tip to arrest Cheever for illegal drug use, when he arrived he witnessed Cheever and the Cooper’s cooking and ingesting meth. Cheever was shooting at several other officers when they came to try and arrest him as well as try to rescue the injured Samuels.
Korematsu v. United States On December 7, 1941, Japanese forces lead an intensive bombing raid on a US military naval base in Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. The results were devastating with thousands dead and the US Pacific fleet almost crippled. America was astonished and afterwards, outraged. Mistakes in the Japanese bombing raid allowed the US Navy to rebound relatively quickly and effectively fight back Japanese forces.
In the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. The order was a “protection against espionage and against sabotage to national defense material, national defense premises, and national defense utilities.” The order also allowed for military commanders to define military areas at their discretion. Congress also passed a law in conjunction with the order to penalize anyone who violated the imposed restrictions.
Facts: President Roosevelt acted to prevent occurrence of subversion and espionage from people of Japanese ancestry residing in the United States. Roosevelt announced two executive orders that quickly became a law. The first one permitted the Secretary of War the power to appoint specific areas of the country as military areas and also exclude others from the area. The second created the War Relocation Authority that had the authority to remove and supervise people that were excluded from the areas. Gordon Kiyoshi Hirabayashi, a student attending University of Washington, was found guilty of infringing a curfew and relocation command.
The 4th amendment states, “The right of the 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.” In the context of the 4th amendment, a search is considered or happens, “when a governmental employee or agent of the government violates an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy.” (Ryan) An example of a search under the 4th amendment is forms of searches such as stip searches or visual body searches but they have to be supported by a probable cause and be conducted in a reasonable matter. A seizure of an individual under the 4th amendment means or happens , “when the police's conduct would communicate to a reasonable person, taking into account the circumstances surrounding the encounter, that the person is not free to ignore the police presence and leave at his will.”
The fourth amendment protects citizens from unlawful search and seizure. In order for a search and seizure to happen the police have to have evidence in order to get a warrant which allows them to search the citizens luggage, house, etc. In some cases the government may go to far, or invade privacy of others, but in this case the government didn’t go to far and this is proven in DLKs case, thermal imager, and heat image. In DLKs case he was taking reasonable expectation of privacy in the activities he was doing in his home.
According to the Fourth Amendment, people have the right to be secure in their private property, and may only be searched with probable cause. However, in a recent case, this right was violated by the government. An Oregon citizen, with the initials of DLK, was suspected of growing marijuana in his home. The federal government used a thermal imager to scan his home, and were later given a warrant to physically search his home. However, many remain divided over whether or not this scan was constitutional, as there was no warrant at the time of the scan.
Miranda vs. Arizona Introduction The Supreme Court case of Miranda vs. Arizona (1966) was a significant case for both law enforcement agencies and the citizens of America. This case would be the milestone that changed how law enforcement agencies handled citizens that were being detained for crimes that were committed. The results from this case have been constantly reviewed and gained further information on how the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments are interpreted. While this was not the first case that brought up violations of Constitutional Rights, this case would set a standard that future Supreme Court Justices would have to uphold.
The Court held that the roadblocks did not violate the Fourth Amendment which covers the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizures also known as protecting our right to privacy. The Court said, "no one can seriously dispute the magnitude of the drunken driving problem or the States ' interest in eradicating it... the weight bearing on the other scale--the measure of the intrusion on motorists stopped briefly at sobriety checkpoints--is slight". This case has shown that an inconvenience to a motorist 's privacy is acceptable when we are dealing with the larger purpose of saving lives.
The founders of the Constitution knew that it is important to protect citizens from violation of their privacy, especially to the respect of invasion of their homes. Therefore the fourth amendment came into existence to ensure that individuals rights will not be infringed. The fourth amendment and the exclusionary rule has protected individual rights against the police and other government agencies from, unreasonable search and seizures. Furthermore, the exclusionary rule has deterred police misconduct and as well as intended to discourage law enforcement from conducting illegal searches by stating that any evidence found during an illegal search will be dismissed and cannot be used against the defendant in a court of law. The supreme court case, Fremont weeks vs. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that since the evidence gathered during weeks case were through illegal means the court dismissed the case.
The Verdict discussed how both cases were attempting to suppress evidence from their cell phones which now contain much more information than they once did. Cases like this continue to shape our rights. The fourth amendment is here to protect ourselves from being incriminated. In modern day the fourth amendment is in question due to new technology.
Four prominent law professors launched a formal complaint about this case and his decision back in September. They argue that cases like this often occur behind closed doors and frequently
Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1969)) • The officer who conducted search on Ybarra provided no evidence that he believe he was armed and dangerous , the search of Ybarra was a violation of his constitutional rights and the decision of the lower courts were reversed • The decision was majority 6 justices to 3, the dissenting opinions were from Justice Rehnquist , Justice Blackmun and Justice Burger they argued that the search of the bar was necessary and the case presented a different set of circumstances to the Terry v Ohio suspicion standard stating that an officer is in more danger executing a warrant than making a standard police stop on the