Supreme+Court+Decisions+Search+Seizure


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Case 1: Outside a Home - //California v. Greenwood// (1988) Police officer in Laguna Beach receive information that person was dealing drugs. One police officer asked a garbage collector to bring her the person's garbage, which had been put out on the sidewalk. The police had no warrant to search the garbage. When they searched the garbage, they found items which indicated drug use. Based on these facts, they obtained a search warrant from the house. There they found cocaine and hashish. They arrested the occupant of the house and prosecuted him for violating federal laws prohibiting the possession of narcotics. The issue was whether the police had the right to search the garbage without a warrant. The Supreme Court ruled that the search of the garbage was proper because it had been put out on the sidewalk.

Case 2: Stop and Frisk - //Sibron v. New York// (1968) One day a police officer was patrolling his beat in New York City. Between 4 P.M. and midnight, the officer saw a man speak with six or eight people known to be drug addicts. The officer did not here the conversations. Moreover, the officer did not see the man hand anything to the drug addicts or see the drug addicts hand anything to the man. In the late evening, the police officer entered a restaurant. There the officer saw the man talking to three more known drug addicts. Again, the officer did not hear the conversations or see anything handed to the addicts or taken from them. The police officer went up to the man he had been watching and said, "You know what I am after." At the same time, the officer put his hand into the man's pocket and pulled out several thin, translucent envelopes. They turned out to contain cocaine. The man was arrested for possession of cocaine, a violation of a state law. The issue was whether the officer had the right to stop and search the man. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of the man, stating that the police had no right to search him.

From: __You Decide! Applying the Bill of Rights to Real Cases__