Courts

Due to the rising dissatisfaction the American courts have carefully expanded mandatory disclosure by the prosecutor, especially with respect to disclosures of exculpatory evidence and impeachment material. Exculpatory evidence is any evidence that might exonerate the defendant at trial by either tending to cast doubt on defendant’s guilt or by tending to mitigate the defendant’s culpability, thereby potentially reducing the defendant’s sentence (David W. Neubauer & Henry F. Fradella). In Brady v. Maryland, he U.S Supreme Court held that “the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or punishment, irrespective of the good faith r bad faith of the prosecution”. This is commonly referred to as Brady rule. The Brady rule applies to material exculpatory evidence only. Exculpatory evidence is material only if there is a reasonable probability that had the evidence been disclosed to the defense the result of the proceeding would have been different (David W. Neubauer & Henry F. Fradella).

2. Identify the major exceptions to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Warrantless searches are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions. The most common form of warrantless searches is called consent searches. This occurs when police ask for permission to search and someone with authority to grant consent agrees to give such permission. Another common type of warrantless search is called a search incident to arrest (David W. Neubauer & Henry F. Fradella). Police routinely search every person they arrest “to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape” and to prevent the concealment or destruction of evidence. As long as the arrest was lawful, all items found on an arrested person or within the area immediately under his or her