CJ 507
Seminar in Legal Issues
Dr. Dial
Mid Term Exam
1. Outline the flow of decision –making in the criminal justice system.
• It begins with a complaint by a citizens or when a police officer witnesses what looks like criminal activity. The police officer will then investigate the crime and if they feel that they have enough evidence to establish probable cause they will swear out a warrant for their arrest. Now if the police observe the actual crime they normally do not have time to secure a warrant so they will arrest them right on the spot based on probable cause. Even if they do not have probable cause they can still question them and if after questioning them probable cause develops they can arrest them. The police can also …show more content…
In the case of Klopfer v. North Carolina (1967): Klopfer was his own counsel and the outcome of the case was a hung jury. The prosecutor filed a lengthy motion; “nolle prosequi with leave” which means he did not want to pursue charges against the defendant at this time but wanted to be able to prosecute them anytime in the future. That is when the Supreme Court incorporated the Sixth Amendment’s right to a speedy trial. Other cases where Duncan v. Louisiana (1968): right to a jury trial, Gideon v. Wainwright (1963): the right to counsel, Pointer v. Texas (1965): the right to be able to confront and cross-examine the witness, and lastly Washington v. Texas: a defendant has the right to obtain witnesses in his favor through the Fourteenth …show more content…
United States when Boyd’s personal papers were requested by the government in connection with a proceeding regarding fraud to avoid paying taxes on certain items. The Fourth Amendment protects against this type of invasion into a person’s private items through a subpoena. Ten years later Weeks v. United States, was the actual birth of the Exclusionary Rule. The Supreme Court held that illegally seized evidence must be excluded from federal criminal prosecutions. The exclusionary rule only applied in federal criminal prosecutions and not the states. Then in Wolf v. Colorado, the Fourth Amendment, but not the Exclusionary Rule applied to the states. The court stated that the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizers is a right protected from state violations by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. The next meaningful exclusionary rule case was Elkins v. United States. The Court overturned the “silver platter doctrine”. It said that evidence that was seized illegally by state officials was inadmissible in a federal criminal trial. In this case the court stated that one purpose of the exclusionary rule is to discourage police misconduct. In Mapp v Ohio the Supreme Court overturned Wolf v. Colorado and said that the exclusionary rule applied in state as well as federal criminal proceedings. Next was Wong Sun v. United States. This case excluded both physical and verbal evidence that was obtained