Police Abuse Essay
While the free essays can give you inspiration for writing, they cannot be used 'as is' because they will not meet your assignment's requirements. If you are in a time crunch, then you need a custom written term paper on your subject (police abuse)
Here you can hire an independent writer/researcher to custom write you an authentic essay to your specifications that will pass any plagiarism test (e.g. Turnitin). Waste no more time!
Police Officers Overstep Their Rights When Searching People
One of the main powers law enforcement officers carry is the authority to make citizens involuntarily give up their rights. Most people when confronted by police get mild to moderate panic reaction, can become nervous or anxious, and do as much as possible to limit the time spent with the officer. Due to the difference in power between a citizen and a police officer, citizens often unknowingly, give up their constitutional rights when an officer acts tough or bullies them (Guidelines…1).
A common and almost everyday occurrence of this situation is the traffic stop.
The common routine for this is as follows: A person is pulled over for speeding. The officer approaches the car and after checking the license and registration asks if they have any illegal weapons or drugs in the car. When the citizen answers “no” the officer asks in the strongest most intimidating language that if he can check that for himself. The officer may say “why don’t you step out of your car” or “then you would not mind if I took a look in your trunk?” Many people simply comply with the requests because they do not really realize that they have the right to say no (Guidelines…1).
Numerous court cases have been held regarding the matters of not only police searching a car but searching your person, the bus or train a person is on and even that persons personal belongings such as a purse, cigarette cases or wallet without a warrant. A warrant is an absolute must to enter into your car home or property. These types of
Police Officers Often Misuse and Overuse their powers when it comes to Conducting Searches on Persons or Property
cases very often prove that officers may take their power to far and often on purposes (Search Warrants Explained 1).
The following is an example of what could happen. A cop stops a speeding car, without a search warrant but suspicion the policeman demands that the driver opens his trunk. Upon doing so he discovers the corpses of a woman and two children. The man later walks out of court scot-free because the evidence was inadmissible. The Fourth Amendment had been violated (Reynolds 59).
Just this past year the Supreme Court of Iowa ruled nine to nothing that officers could not search a person when only writing them a traffic citation. This came across in a case in which an Iowa man was arrested after an officer pulled him over for speeding. Without the individuals consent, the officer looked through his car. (Under the drivers seat the officer found a small amount of marijuana and the man was ordered 90 days in jail.) The case was first tried in the Iowa Supreme Court where the court ruled in favor of the officer five to four. The case was then appealed to the United States Supreme Court where the nation struck down Iowa’s ruling. The Chief Justice William Rehnquist stated “No further evidence of excessive speed was going to be found either on the person or in the car.” Hopefully this will keep officers from overstepping their boundaries in Iowa but only in Iowa (Epstein 1).
Officers many times like to intimidate citizens perhaps because it makes them feel good or they think they will not get caught. Jean Benson is a 61 year-old grandmother from Florida. She was driving through Louisiana when she was pulled over
Police Officers Often Misuse and Overuse their Powers when it comes to Conducting Searches on Persons or Property
by a policeman. “Pop your trunk.” Were the officer’s words? He brought out a piece of paper that “said” he had a right to search her car and that she was signing it voluntarily.
She then told him that she did not want him to look through any of her personal belongings. To this he replied, “you will sign that piece of paper and we will search your car.” The policeman searched her car and found nothing. The elderly woman was so shaken by the incident that she cried for the next 100 miles (Hallinan 1).
The following is an example of what happened just outside of Allentown, Pennsylvania. A motorist by the name of George Karnes was pulled over by state trooper Thomas Krutski for going 82 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour zone. The trooper then wrote him a ticket for the offense. This is where the stop should have been over. Then the trooper asked to search the car. Karnes said no because there was no reason but the trooper did not let him go. Police are instructed that once a motorist refuses a search, police must let him go. Then the officer called in a K-9 officer, who promptly arrived on the scene. The officer asked Karnes three separate times to search the car. All three times he refused so the officer then brought out the drug-sniffing dog. Twice the dog sniffed his way around the car. Both times the dog found no detection of drugs. Finally, two and a half-hours after he was first pulled over, the troopers let George Karnes go (Hallnian 2). The process that just took place above was an example of police overstepping their boundaries and easily intimidating common citizens for no apparent reason.
Police Officers Often Misuse and Overuse their Powers when it comes to Conducting Searches on Persons or Property
Many other forms of harassment occur by police officers and even security officers. There are countless incidents in which police believe they have the right to search your travel bags, luggage, purse, bus or train somebody is riding on, or even just stop a person for a terry search when they are walking on the street.
In an Illinois case more that half of the justices expressed concern over the power
that gives police the power to search anyone who flees from police. (The case argues that William Waldrow had the right to run when he saw four police cruisers drive by in a high crime neighborhood.) Police got out, chased him and found an illegal handgun in his possession. The Illinois Supreme Court argued that police would only be entitled to a pat down search not a full body search. Even Justice David Souter said that he to might have fled in order “to get out of the way” of what might occur between police and other possible criminals (Mauro 1). Justice John Paul Stevens expressed concern that if somebody was jaywalking, could he be entitled to a search by police? (Asseo 2)
The following took place in Bay County, Florida. A man by the name Tyvessel White was arrested for an irrelevant matter, after he was taken into custody, police obtained the keys to his car and took it from his workplace’s parking lot. (Supreme Court to Rule…1). The police officers did not obtain a warrant to seize White’s car, they did not even have knowledge that the car had contraband, or claim that the seizure of the car was at all relevant to his arrest (The Forfeiture…2). The basis for the seizure was the belief by the police, based on eyewitness and videotapes, that the car had been used in the delivery and sale of cocaine on three occasions and was subject to forfeiture (Supreme Court Says No…1). After the car was searched two pieces of crack cocaine
Police Officers Often Misuse and Overuse their Powers when it comes to Conducting Searches on Persons or Property
were found in the dashboard ashtray (Supreme Court to rule…1). The officers now face the following questions about their authority to impound the vehicle and look through the car. Can the vehicle be impounded even when a reasonable and less intrusive alternative exists? Can an inventory search be conducted at the point of seizure on the side of the road, or must it take place at the impoundment location? Can the officers search the contents of any closed and locked items? And lastly, will the officers suspicion that the
drugs may be preset in the vehicle affect the admissibility of any evidence found during the search (Anderson 1)?
This case was taken to the Supreme Court in Florida. The court said that the cocaine should not have been used as evidence because police failed to obtain a warrant before searching the car. The court ruled that in the absence of any emergency police could not seize “a citizen’s property…without the intervention of a neutral magistrate (Supreme Court to rule…1).”
Throughout the following example many questions will arise on the actions the police took in the incident. The following was argued in United States v. Whitehead, where a man was found guilty of cocaine possession. 3 A man boarding a train from Miami, Florida to New York City was seen by law enforcement officers as acting suspicious and calling attention to himself. The officers decided to check him and talked to both the taxi driver and ticket agent, both of who had contact with him. The officers concluded that he was picked up at a motel known for drug traffickers and paid for his ticket in all cash. With this in mind the officers confronted the man and noticed he broke out in a profuse sweat, they told the man that they were conducting a narcotics test
Police Officers Often Misuse and Overuse their Powers when it comes to Conducting Searches on Persons or Property
and asked to check his bags. He declined. He boarded the train without difficulty. The officers then contacted Amtrak officers who got on the train when it stopped in Washington D.C. With them came two drug-sniffing dogs. The officer knocked on the door of the man with the dog and asked for permission to search his bags with the dogs. The defendant then allowed him to do so. The dogs were attracted to one of the man's bags, which in turn revealed three kilograms of cocaine (Kingston 5).
Now many questions are raised in a situation like this. First what did the defendant do that was so suspicious, was he walking frantically? Avoiding officers? Constantly checking his bags? Second, what is the train considered? Is it a Public Place? Or is it considered to be the same as a motel room or a private home? Lastly and most importantly, where does the fourth amendment of the United States Constitution come in.
The fourth amendment of the Constitution states “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated (Rosen 1).” The Fourth Amendment brought upon as a priority by the early Americans since they knew what it was like to have British soldiers bursting into their homes without warrants (The Right of the People…1). According to case law, officers may not forcibly enter a premises without waiting for the occupant to respond unless exigent circumstances exist (Judge Rejects Evidence…2). Forty-four states also...
MLA Style
. EssayMania.com. Retrieved on 25 May, 2012 from
<http://essaymania.com/95786/police-abuse>
More College Papers
Ordinary Men Or Willing Executioners essay
The arguments of Christopher Browning and Daniel John Goldhagen contrast greatly based on the underlining meaning of the Holocaust to ordinary Germans. Why did ordinary citizens participate in the process of mass murder? Christopher Browning examines the history of a battalion of the Order Police wh
Orphan Drugs essay
The term orphan drug refers to a product that treats a rare disease affecting fewer than 200,000 Americans. Orphan drugs help the companies that manufacture them, under the Orphan drug act. Under the act a small company can pick up a product that would be worth anywhere from $5 million to $20 millio
Fascism essay
Fascism is a form of counter-revolutionary politics that first arose in the early part of the twentieth-century in Europe. It was a response to the rapid social upheaval, the devastation of World War I, and the Bolshevik Revolution. Fascism is a philosophy or a system of government the advocates or