In July of 2000 Curtis Williams was indicted by a grand jury in Williamson County, Texas for aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury. While under indictment, Williams traveled to Louisiana from Texas on a Greyhound bus. The bus Williams was traveling on was scheduled to make a stop at the Shreveport Greyhound Bus terminal on September 12,…
Katz (the appellant) was convicted under an eight-count indictment, charged with transmitting wagering information by telephone from Los Angeles to Miami and Boston. The evidence, telephone conversations overheard by the FBI agents with an attached electronic listening and recording device, to the phone booth Katz used. The Court of Appeals rejected the contention that the recordings had been obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment.…
The supreme court case Carpenter v. United States is arising the question of whether the warrantless search and seizure of cell phone records revealing the movement of the user over the course of 127 days. After four people were arrested for a series of armed robberies, one confessed and gave his phone number as well as the others. As a result of this more chargers were placed on Carpenter for interfering with interstate commerce, because of the Hobbs Act. This case is using the fourth amendment and arguing that his phone being searched was an “unreasonable search or seizure”. I think that the US or FBI is right in this case, since Carpenter had already committed multiple armed robberies and the information was provided by another person who…
In the case of Smith v. United States, the plaintiff, John Angus Smith, was convicted of engaging in drug-trafficking, which would have granted him a five year sentence had he not “used” a firearm in regards to the incident. As stated in statute 924(c)(1), the use of firearm in relations to a drug-trafficking crime enhanced the sentence, and turned it into a 30-year sentence. The argument at hand is whether the term “use” was to be taken from a broad dictionary definition or in the ordinary meaning. The majority of the court argued that the term “use” should not be limited to the intended use of the firearm (as a weapon) as they exemplified cases of which the firearm was used as a bludgeon even though that was not it’s intended purpose, yet…
It was determined that the plaintiffs failed to show any part of the statute led to a denied admission to any non public school on racial or religious grounds. So the complaint of violating the 14th amendment was not discussed and dismissed for lack of standing.…
Mr. McCleskey was a Black man, that was convicted of two counts armed robbery and one count of murder in the Supreme Court of Fulton County, Georgia. His convictions were due to the robbery of a furniture store and the killing of a white police officer while the robbery was occurring. There was evidence presented at trial that proved one of the bullets to be from a .38 caliber Rossi revolver, which fit the description of the gun McCleskey was carrying, and two witnesses who had heard McCleskey had admitted to the shooting.…
Case: Goldberg, Commissioner of Social Services of the City of New York v. Kelly et al. (1970)…
On May 12, 2016 the court case Binks/McKay vs the United States challenged the idea of the Fourth Amendment. The case explains the situation between Binks and McKay, who claimed that the FBI violated their Fourth amendment rights when the FBI searched through their Facebook messages after being suspected of being terrorists. This occured when Binks and McKay were discovered to have been communicating with a supposed ISIS member. They had claimed to have no intentions of joining the terrorist group. In this case, Sam and Melanie (petitioners) reminded us that a warrant and reason for searching is a necessity when it comes to violating one’s right to privacy. However, court justices Danny and Nick both asked similarly: “Why do you think that violates their privacy?…
In the case of Riley v California the defendant and petitioner David Leon Riley was arrested August 22, 2009, after a traffic stop which resulted in the finding of loaded guns in car. The officer stopped riley searched him and took hold of his phone and then searched through messages, contacts, and photos. The officer charged Riley with an unrelated shooting that had taken place before his arrest based on the data stored in Riley's phone. The data found in Riley phone were images of gang’s signs and believed to be in a part of a gang. Riley went to try to suppress all evidence the officer had got from searching his phone on the grounds that the search had violated his fourth amendment rights. However the trial court denied his argument and stated the incident was legitimate to arrest, Riley was convicted.…
I personally believe that the meaning of a “well-regulated militia” is when citizens are properly following the laws and abide the rules of bearing arms. Militia can be defined as, “An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers” according to Gary the Gun Nut’s post on Thomhartmann.com. In the District of Columbia v. Heller case, gun control was the purpose problem. The case resulted in protecting the “Second Amendment of an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home,...” in which was a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court.…
In the court case of Katz v. United States. Charles Katz, was charged with conducting illegal gambling operations across state lines in violation of federal law. In order to collect evidence against Katz, federal agents placed a warrantless wiretap on the public phone booth that he used to conduct these operations. The agents listened only to Katz's conversations, and only to the parts of his conversations dealing with illegal gambling transactions, wiretapping a public phone booth is in violation of the fourth amendment the Supreme Court stated that “4th Amendment protects the people and not certain areas against search and seizure”. Without this amendment people would have no claim over their personal privacy, or security. Any officer could enter homes and take any evidence that could be used to make an arrest or that could be used for prosecution in court.…
In the legal information institute website, they bring up one case in Wurie vs the United states in which Brima Wurie was arrested of having 2 packs of cocaine. Officers found the phone and due to his locations of where he had called from and his accounts they traced the address of the suspect back to the home in which they found many more drugs and ammunition. Later, Wurie was convicted of those charges. However, later appealed on the grounds of the 4th amendment saying that the police didn’t have probable cause to search through Wurie’s phone. In the article, it also mentions, “The Court of Appeals noted that information stored on cellular phones is of a kind otherwise off-limits to police searches incident to an arrest.” (Rosales Para. 8). This shows that the court felt that the officer had no reason to go through the phone of the suspect because there wasn’t any need to search for it due to the reason of…
Individual rights under the Fourth Amendment can make or break a case in trial. According to the Fourth Amendment, “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.” This is a United States citizens Fourth Amendment right equally protected to all. This protects the people from the State and Federal Governments within their privacy. The Fourth Amendment also advises that a Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) must have probable cause before seeking a warrant. Probable cause is when there are enough facts, or totality of the circumstances, that a crime has happened. The LEO if seeking for a search warrant must state in the warrant what it is they will be searching for. For example, if an LEO seeks a search warrant for stolen property; the LEO must only check items in the house which could be stolen; i.e. televisions, computers, vehicles etc. The LEO checking a thumb drive, not putting on the warrant to check that equipment, which contains child pornography, would be an illegal search and seizure. Unfortunately, the defendant in this situation would have the evidence suppressed due to the illegal search.…
“The fourth amendment violates unreasonable seizures and searches” (Kopp 1). I think if you do not give law enforcement access to your information, you have something that you are hiding. Even if it isn’t anything to make you a criminal, you have something to hide. Even though you have the right to your privacy, most of the time, law enforcement doesn’t just want to search your data for no reason. If they really want to get the information and have the right reasons, they are going to get the access, whether you give it to them or not. “That interaction between cell sites and phones lets wireless carriers log and store details including a call’s time, date, and length” (Greenemeir 1). When they have the access and search your phone, they can look at literally everything they want in your phone, once access is approved. Therefore, if you gave them a reason to look into it in the first place, you might as well give them your consent to look through your information so they can find what they…
The primary purpose of this act was to allow the government surveillance of people in an effort to prevent terrorist attacks. The federal, state, and local governments have described their monitoring of internet usage as only a form of a safety precaution in hopes of protecting their citizens. This power that was granted to the United States government from the Patriot Act is only used when necessary in cases where suspicion is raised, and then they may subpoena information from the internet provider or obtain a search warrant. Title II of the Patriot Act allows the search to be executed with a search warrant, but the suspect does not need to be informed until after the search, nor do they need to be present during the search. This, however, does not contradict the Fourth Amendment because of the Stored Communications Act of…