4 assignments

Chapter 15 16

Discuss FULLY the issues raised by the call of the question

Question 1

1. Facts of the case
   A police officer stopped a car that had a burned out license plate light and headlight. There were six men in the car, including Robert Clyde Bustamonte. Only one passenger had a drivers license, and he claimed that his brother owned the car. The officer asked this man if he could search the car. The man said, “Sure, go ahead.” Inside the car, the officer found stolen checks. Those checks were admitted into evidence at Bustamonte’s trial for possessing checks with the intent to defraud. A jury convicted Bustamonte, and the California Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District affirmed. The court reasoned that consent to search the car was given voluntarily, so evidence obtained during the search was admissible. The California Supreme Court denied review. Bustamonte filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which the district court denied. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that consent is not voluntary unless it is proven that the person who consented to the search knew he had the right to refuse consent.

   Question2
   (2) Did the court of appeals err when it held that the search of the car was invalid because the state failed to show consent given with knowledge that it could be withheld?

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Chapters 19 & 20 Quiz

Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the exclusionary rule, which prevents prosecutors from using evidence in court that was obtained by violating the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, applies not only to the U.S. federal government, but also to the U.S. states. The Supreme Court accomplished this by use of a principle known as selective incorporation; in Mapp this involved the incorporation of the provisions, as interpreted by the Court, of the Fourth Amendment which is applicable only to actions of the federal government into the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause which is applicable to actions of the states.

Read and Brief Mapp. Use the Issue, Rule, Application & Conclusion format to discuss all issues raised by this seminal case.

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Chapters 21-24 Assignment

Question 1

1. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)

   In the landmark supreme court case Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the Court held that if police do not inform people they arrest about certain constitutional rights, including their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, then their confessions may not be used as evidence at trial. The Court referenced Mapp v. Ohio (1961) as the basis for excluding the confessions. The ruling was also based on the assertions that the Fifth Amendment privilege is “fundamental to our system of constitutional rule” and that to inform the accused of their rights is “expedient [and] simple.”

   ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS USING MIRANDA:

   1. Why did the Supreme Court overturn Miranda’s conviction?
   2. According to the Court’s majority opinion,”…the prosecution may not use statements…stemming from … interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination.” What are the effects of this ruling for accused persons? For society?
   3. Justice Harlan, who wrote the Court’s dissenting opinion in the case, said, “The social costs of crime are too great to call the new rules anything but a hazardous experimentation…. One is entitled to feel astonished that the Constitution can be read to produce this result.” Do you agree? Why or why not?

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Chapters 25 – 28

How did Gideon v. Wainwright impact the criminal justice system?