Search and seizure Trends (From Criminal Law Seminar, 1977, Tape 1, Side 1 - See NCJ - 69932)

• NCJ Number: 69933
• Author(s): A Bell
• Date Published: 1977
• Length: 0 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: California Attorneys for Criminal Justice
• Corporate Author: California Attorneys for Criminal Justice
• Sale Source: Oceana Publications, Inc; Not Available Through National Institute of Justice/NCJRS Document Loan Program
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS. Price listed is for one cassette tape. 1977.

Annotation

Recent trends indicating increasing application of the exclusionary rule to the search and seizure of evidence formerly regarded as admissible, are described as encouraging and as victories for personal freedom.

Abstract

Part of a five-audiocassette series containing the proceedings of the 1977 statewide Criminal Law Seminar sponsored by the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, and primarily intended for an audience of defense attorneys and law students, this presentation by a law scholar deals with recent trends in exclusionary rule applications. Two recent court decisions (one by the Supreme Court Chief Justice and the other by a California judge, described here as a law and order conservative), which denied the admissibility of evidence seized in two warrantless searches yielding large quantities of marijuana and heroin, are reviewed as encouraging. The Supreme Court ruling is perceived as a reindorsement of the Warren clause which extended the exclusionary rule to things found in a public place, such as a 200-lb locked footlocker, seized at a railroad station and leaking talcum powder (such powder is often used to disguise the marijuana odor). Anything seized by a police officer without a search warrant is destined to be excluded as evidence (e.g., attache cases containing loot from a bank robbery, heroin balloons taken from the mouth of a known drug user and dealer, weapons falling out of a suspect's purse). All evidence of this type is currently ruled inadmissible through increasingly subtle technical refinements of the exclusionary rule and the search and seizure laws. Illegal aliens, unless caught crossing the border, cannot be arrested on suspicion, even if they are found to be carrying heroin, since the search and seizure is itself illegal. This will be one of the consequences of the increasingly liberal reading of the exclusionary rules. The speaker refers to several court cases and decisions, all of which are summarized in the syllabus provided with the cassettes.