NCJ Number
194575
Date Published
2002
Length
24 pages
Annotation
This police officers' handbook recounts the facts of the case James Michael Flippo v. West Virginia as an illustration that there is no "murder scene" exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. Also offered in this handbook is a section on "Operation Lifesaver," concerning railway safety issues.
Abstract
This handbook is designed to give police officers an example of the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment. In the case of Flippo v. West Virginia, negatives and photographs were seized from a closed and locked briefcase at the scene of a murder. Although during trial, Flippo moved to suppress these photographs because they were seized during a warrantless search, the trial court allowed them into evidence citing that the search was part of a "homicide crime scene" and therefore valid. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed this ruling on the grounds that there is no "murder scene" exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, as demonstrated in a previous case, Mincey v. Arizona. Warrantless searches are only permissible in narrowly defined cases such as the exceptions for "plain view" and "exigent circumstances." Outside of these narrowly defined exceptions, people enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes or at the crime scene. This case was thus remanded for further proceedings with specific instructions to exclude the photographs and negatives. The remainder of this police handbook offers a history of the Operation Lifesaver program for railway safety and gives tips for enforcing laws designed to keep the public safe at railway crossings.