Post details: AL: Burglars of defendant's property could be CIs

02/04/10

Permalink 08:26:49 am, by fourth, 369 words, 68 views   English (US)
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AL: Burglars of defendant's property could be CIs

Four men were arrested trying to break into defendant’s property. They claimed they were looking for marijuana that they believed would be there. The police used that information to get a search warrant, and five pounds of marijuana were found. The fact they were first time CIs did not make them unreliable. [Well, every CI has to start somewhere.] State v. Jenkins, 26 So. 3d 458 (Ala. Crim. App. 2007), released for publication January 4, 2010, affirmed by Ex parte Jenkins, 26 So. 3d 464 (Ala., 2009).

Defendant was stopped for pulling out of a convenience store without headlights at 3 a.m. The officer observed a baggy of probable meth when he was talking to the defendant getting his driver’s license. The officer called for backup. The officer had probable cause for a search of the car without being able to specifically identify what was in the baggy. United States v. Garcia, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8689 (D. Nev. January 5, 2010)*:

Here, at the initial point of contact with Garcia, Officer Sutton observed a clear baggy containing a crystalline substance. Based on his experience and training, he immediately identified the substance as a possible controlled substance--methamphetamine. Garcia does not dispute the presence or location of the methamphetamine, but argues that the particles were so small that it was impossible for Officer Sutton to ascertain that they were, in fact, methamphetamine. However, the inability to immediately identify the substance as methamphetamine is not dispositive. "[I]t is settled law that officers may "'draw on their own experience about cumulative information available to them that might well elude an untrained person.'" Hart v. Parks, 450 F.3d 1059, 1067 (9th Cir. 2006) (citing United States v. Hernandez, 313 F.3d 1206, 1210 (9th Cir. 2002) (quoting United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 273 (2002))). The court finds that, a reasonable person with Officer Sutton's experience and training would have concluded, as Officer Sutton did, that the vehicle contained contraband or evidence of criminal activity. Thus, under the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment's general warrant requirement, the police were authorized to search the vehicle. The evidence obtained as a result of the vehicle search is admissible. 7

7 The court finds separately that, standing alone, the immediately recognizable drug contraband supplied the necessary probable cause to conduct the warrantless search.

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"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984).

"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today."
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting).

"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property."
Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765)

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United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)

"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).

"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable."
Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987)

"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."
Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967)

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United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)

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