East Side Riva Gang Research Paper

November 21, 2011

Section # 45665, Hybrid

Dr. Oliver M. Thompson

Farah H. Soomro

Student ID # 2252594

Phone # [phone]

E-mail address: [e-mail]

Amendments

And

The East Side Riva Gang.

The United States Constitution declares the Amendments that of which apply to anyone that is present in the United States, citizen or a non-citizen. The preamble, or an introduction given to the people, by the founding fathers of the United States was meant to lay an outline for the Amendments. One can interpret the preamble as a reason why the Amendments exist and why they are still being commonly used in the United States. The Amendments are also known as the Bill of Rights, which serve as a guide of basic
rules established for the people who live, visit, or come to the U.S., whether lawfully or unlawfully. The Amendments are derived from the English Bill of rights and English Law. The Constitution of the United States sets forth the nation's fundamental laws. It establishes the form of the national government and defines the rights and liberties of the people residing in America.

Many people do not realize the importance of Amendments, and only choose to practice them if and when they come in contact with the law.
The Fourth and Fifth Amendments come into play when people are initially being arrested for any crime. The Fourth Amendment protects people against unreasonable search and seizure and the Fifth Amendment gives right for the person to remain silent, and not make self-incriminating statements. The Sixth Amendment grants someone charged with a crime, right to a speedy trial by the peers of his community. Once the court knowledge’s a crime has taken place by a person, Eight Amendment, is there to protect the person being charged with excusive fine or bail. Eight Amendments also grants the person found guilty to not face “cruel or unusual punishment.” The Fourteenth Amendment is perhaps the one we don’t realize very often. But it is there, to protect non-citizens and citizens
alike.

Civil gang injunctions are an increasingly popular gang suppression tactic. These injunctions were challenged in the past, but today city attorneys have carefully worded their filings, they now name every gang member, along with restricting what they wear, where they are allowed to go, how late they may stay out and prohibit the gangs from associating with each other, which includes throwing up signs, acting as lookouts and using drugs. Violating these terms could make them in contempt with court and carry a sentence. One such civil gang injunction was handed out to local gang here in Riverside, known as the East Side Riva. The issue rises, why are District Attorney; such as Rod Pacheco, allowed to violate privacy of these gang members.

The word “privacy” itself does not appear in the U.S.
Constitution, but the U.S. Supreme Court has said that several of the Amendments create this right. One of which is the Fourth Amendment. It stops the police and other government agencies from searching citizens and or their property without proof of incriminating evidence that is to brought forth before a judge should generate a belief that incriminating evidence can be found on the citizens/property. The law in this stance is simple one is very much entailed to their constitutional rights, up until the guilty verdict, where the first right you lose is the one most cherish the most, “right to privacy.” This by no mean gives way to not having an attorney present, sixth amendment as stated above, gives one right to counsel. In the case of evidence use, there were a couple of cases; Boyd v. United States and Weeks v. United States, that said the federal government couldn’t use evidence acquired through an illegal process due to an exclusionary rule and it would not be admissible in court. So, if the evidence is obtained legally, it is admissible in court. Most of the Amendments might not be as black and white as people would want them to be. Our forefathers left a gray area, which has now been left to the people of various sates to fill in. Though unknown by me, as to how affective Civil gang injunctions are, there was never injustice, or overstepped boundaries by the DA. East Side Riva gang members were nothing more
than nuisance to the society they resided in, loss of privacy and unable to contact each other, or being asked to wear different clothing seems rather reasonable, all things considered.

Once arrested for a gang related crime, an illegal alien would have been tried, represented with counsel, procedures and trail would have been exactly the same, but being a non-citizen, and with the current over crowding of the jails and prisons, the person convicted would have been deported. Considering, immigration would have been notified of their affiliation with a gang and legal status.

The legal basis for denying probationers and parolees full constitutional protections has varied over the years, (1) In the case of parolees; many courts adopted the "constructive custody" theory. This theory holds that parolees remain in the custody of the state while on parole and, therefore, are entitled to only the same limited Fourth Amendment rights as inmates. Not everyone followed this theory. In 1972, the Supreme Court decided the case of Morrissey v. Brewer. This case involved the application of Fifth Amendment due processes to parole revocation hearings, several comments made by the Court were on its later discussion of Fourth Amendment rights of probationers and parolees. The Court recognized without much discussion that parolees and, by analogy, probationers are different from ordinary citizens. Because of their unique position, states lawfully may impose restrictions upon parolees and probationers that otherwise would be unlawful if applied to ordinary citizens.

In the case of East Side Riva gang, though the injunction might/might not solve the problem of these gangs associating, or communicating, but the District Attorney Rod Pacheco prosecuted them by the law.

Endnotes:

(1) For a good examination of the development of these legal theories, see Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment (St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co., 1996), Section 10.10.