Quotes About Police

This decision means that the police can enter a home or a business illegally, and if they see contraband or evidence of illegal activity, they can then go to a magistrate for a warrant. The police don't have to tell the judge about their illegal entry. They

Massiah v. Illinois, the Court held that without the presence of a lawyer, the police may not attempt to deliberately elicit statements from a person who has been indicted.6 That same year the Court went further and, in Escobedo v. Illinois, held that even before there is an indictment, criminal defendants have the right to have an attorney present while police are questioning them in custody.7

Second, where sheriffs and constables had been under local judicial authority, the police were placed under cities' executive authority.

Police officers, like all other witnesses, can be criminally prosecuted for perjury, the Court said, which provided an adequate deterrent to perjury.

ruling that tangible evidence may be used against a criminal defendant, even if the police learned of it only through an interrogation that was done in violation of Miranda. In United States v. Patane in 2004, the Court held that police failure to give a criminal suspect the required Miranda warnings does not require suppression of physical evidence learned as a result of the questioning.

police know that even if they intentionally violate Miranda and the statements gained are not admissible, the information obtained still can be used in other ways against the suspect. Subsequent Supreme Court decisions allow the statements to be used for other purposes—such as to impeach a criminal defendant at trial34 or to lead to physical evidence that can be admitted.35

when police violate the Fourth Amendment's requirement for "knock and announce," the exclusionary rule does not apply.

police officers have absolute immunity when they testify as witnesses, even when they commit perjury and even when their perjured testimony results in the conviction of an innocent person.

The issue was whether the exclusionary rule applies when police commit an illegal search based on good faith reliance on erroneous information from another jurisdiction. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the 5–4 majority, held that the exclusionary rule does not apply and that the evidence was properly admitted against Herring.

The Court held that the exclusionary rule may be applied only if police intentionally or recklessly violate the Fourth Amendment or only if police department violations with regard to searches and seizures are systemic.

Instead, the Court's conservative majority that already wanted to limit the exclusionary rule issued a sweeping decision that evidence never has to be excluded if the police violate the Fourth Amendment in good faith or through negligence.

Schneckloth v. Bustamonte is important on many levels. First, it dramatically empowers police to be able to search. It obviates the need for police to meet all the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, such as the need for probable cause (or at least reasonable suspicion) and the need for a warrant. It is estimated that consent searches comprise over 90 percent of all warrantless searches.

Rampart officers came to assume that all Latino and African American men between fifteen and fifty who had short hair and wore baggy pants were gang members, and that that warranted any efforts on their part to remove them from the streets. So they planted evidence to frame innocent people and lied in courts to gain convictions.

Miller says that when police obtain information that a person has shared with a third party, it is not a search. Therefore, the requirements for probable cause and a warrant—the key protections of privacy under the Fourth Amendment—do not apply or need to be met.

Smith v. Maryland, it held that police can obtain a list of phone numbers that a person calls, or receives calls from, without needing to get a warrant or have probable cause.

The automobile exception provides that police may search a car without a warrant when they have probable cause that it may contain contraband or evidence of illegal activity.

Carroll v. United States, in 1925, involved a search of a car without a warrant, for bootleg liquor.65 The Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Taft, explained that the mobility of cars justified allowing police to search them without needing a warrant because the "vehicle can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in which the warrant must be sought."66

First, it has narrowed the scope of rights that people have when dealing with the police. If there is no constitutional limit to police power, and politically imposed limits are absent, then police can do whatever they want. Overall, the Court has interpreted protections against unreasonable searches and arrests narrowly, compelled self-incrimination, and accepted faulty identification procedures.

The Court has held that when police conduct a warrantless search of a vehicle, they may search all containers within it that might contain evidence of a crime or contraband.76 They may search even containers belonging to passengers who are not suspected of criminal activity.

Utah v. Strieff was one of many cases during the Rehnquist and Roberts Courts—from 1986 to the present—that empowered and encouraged police to violate the Constitution.

For suspects undergoing police interrogation, the rulings provide very little protection from coercion, so long as the officers don't use physical force.

The purpose of the stop had obviously been to look for drugs, but the police had had no reasonable suspicion, let alone probable cause, to justify a stop for that kind of crime. They had stopped the car for a minor traffic violation patently as an excuse to search for drugs.

In Atwater v. Lago Vista in 2001, the Court held that police did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they arrested a mother, and took her to the stationhouse for booking, for not having her children in seat belts

Once police pull the car over, they can order the driver and the passenger out of the car.19 They can then search the passenger area of the car, including all containers within it.20 This is to protect the officers, the Court explained, to ensure that the car contains no weapon that an individual might reach for.