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Canadian Law
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The Constitution and The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - Search and Seizure - Abdullah Nasir, Matthew Bryan, Waleed Sohail
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Supreme Court sides with Utah police on search and seizure case

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Supreme Court sides with Utah police on search and seizure case

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This article talks about a decision that the court made regarding a search and seizure. Back in 2006, an illegal stop was made and a search was done in the car and the cops found illegal drugs. The Utah Supreme Court deemed it illegal but when the case went to the nation's Supreme Court, they took the cops' side on a 5 to 3 decision.

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(KUTV) On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the police department in a case that goes back to 2006.

At the heart of the issue is the fourth amendment. In a 5 to 3 ruling, the nation's highest court ruled that evidence seized after a suspect is arrested on a valid warrant, even during an illegal traffic stop, can be admissible in court.

"We were disappointed with today's ruling," says John Mejia, Legal Director of the Utah American Civil Liberties Union, known as the ACLU. He's worried the court's ruling could open the door for future violations of Fourth Amendment rights.

"Police actually need a reason to stop you. The baseline is always going to be you have a right to be free from government interference without consent unless the government can articulate a reason for why they're doing that."

The ruling stems from an incident in December 2006. Edward Joseph Strieff was stopped by a detective after leaving a house where there was a suspected drug operation.

The Attorney General's Office acknowledges the initial stop was illegal, but during that stop, the detective learned Strieff had an outstanding traffic warrant, so he was arrested and searched. The search revealed Strieff was carrying illegal drugs.

"The evidence wasn't discovered until after that lawful arrest was made. We think that's a sufficient break in the causal chain of the earlier illegality to make the evidence admissible," said Tyler Green, Utah's Solicitor General.

The Utah Supreme Court ruled Strieff's conviction could not be upheld because the evidence was obtained illegally, violating the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure.

"That's when our office looked at it and asked the Supreme Court of the United States to grant review and it did," said Green, who represented the Utah AG's office before the high court. They sided with him in a 5 to 3 decision.

Justice Clarence Thomas issued the ruling, saying, in part: "The majority in the 5-3 opinion said the evidence seized after a suspect is arrested on a valid warrant -- even if that warrant was discovered in an illegal stop -- is admissible in court as long as the stop is not the result of flagrant police misconduct."

The Utah ACLU says now anyone who is involved in an illegal stop has a higher burden to show there was something egregiously wrong with the stop.

"It is our sincere hope that police don't start using today's ruling as an excuse to start conducting dragnet stops," said Mejia.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was an outspoken dissenting vote, in her opinion, she wrote: "The court today holds that the discovery of a warrant for an unpaid parking ticket will forgive a police officer's violation of your Fourth Amendment rights."

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Supreme Court sides with Utah police on search and seizure case

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(KUTV) On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the police department in a case that goes back to 2006.At the heart of the issue is the fourth amendment. In a 5 to 3 ruling, the nation's highest court ruled that evidence seized after a suspect i

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Top court throws out $4M seizure after illegal search

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Top court throws out $4M seizure after illegal search

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This article talks about the illegal search that the officers did which led to the big bust of $4 million seizure. It talks about a cop pulling over a car for missing a front license. Later when he asked the driver for his license he did a computer scan to see that his license was suspended. After he arrested the driver, he did a vehicle search to find the license but ended up finding 2 boxes of cocaine with street value of $4 million. The judge deemed it illegal for the officer to do a vehicle search and that it violated the charter rights

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OTTAWA - The need to acquire crucial evidence is no excuse for police misconduct that tramples Charter rights, says Canada's top court.

The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday threw out a drug conviction linked to a cocaine seizure worth up to $4 million because the police search "flagrantly" breached the suspect's Charter protections.

The high court ruled 6-1 to acquit Bradley Harrison of all charges.

It was one of four judgments handed down Friday that clarify legal limits for judges and police when it comes to evidence obtained through detention or searches that cross the Charter line.

The rulings underscore that any breach of rights must be carefully balanced against the value of the evidence and the facts of each case.

In the Harrison case, the high court overruled both the trial judge and the majority of the Ontario Court of Appeal in stressing that a provincial police officer went too far.

"While an officer's 'hunch' is a valuable investigative tool -- indeed, here it proved to be highly accurate -- it is no substitute for proper Charter standards when interfering with a suspect's liberty," wrote Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin for the court.

The judgments come at a time when the Harper government is in the midst of a law-and-order crackdown, especially for drug crimes. Vancouver in particular has suffered a recent spate of gang shootings linked to the marijuana and narcotics trade.

"It is true that the public interest in having the case adjudicated on its merits favours the admission of the evidence, particularly in light of its reliability," McLachlin acknowledged.

"On the other hand, the impact on the accused's rights, while not egregious, was significant. Bulking even larger, however, was the police misconduct involved in obtaining the evidence. This was far from a technical or trivial breach."

Rather, it involved "brazen and flagrant" disregard of Harrison's rights against arbitrary detention and unreasonable search and seizure, she said, quoting the trial judge.

Nonetheless, both the trial judge and the majority of the Ontario Court of Appeal swept aside those violations. Both deemed that the value of the evidence mitigated those tactics -- a rationalization that critics likened to knee-capping the Charter.

On Oct. 24, 2004, the Ontario Provincial Police officer stopped the Dodge Durango near Kirkland Lake, Ont., that Harrison and a friend had rented two days earlier at the Vancouver Airport. The constable had noticed the vehicle was missing a front licence plate.

He quickly realized, however, that the Durango was registered in Alberta and didn't require a front plate.

That's where the matter should have ended, wrote McLachlin. Instead, the officer told court that since he already had his lights flashing, the "integrity" of the police required he pull the vehicle over.

Harrison said he couldn't find his driver's licence. A computer search revealed that it was suspended. The officer arrested Harrison on that basis, but then said he searched the vehicle in hopes of finding the lost licence -- even though it was by now irrelevant.

Two cardboard boxes in the back of the SUV contained 35 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of up to $4 million.

Harrison was originally sentenced to five years in prison.

Dissenting Justice Marie Deschamps would have upheld his conviction.

"This is a case in which excluding the evidence will have a negative effect on the confidence of an objective person, fully informed of all the circumstances, in the administration of justice."

In one of Friday's companion rulings, the high court ruled 7-0 to uphold convictions against Donnohue Grant, saying his rights were justifiably violated when police stopped him on a Toronto sidewalk for no particular reason.

The young black man, then 18, was stopped on foot by police patrolling a high-crime neighbourhood at lunchtime on Nov. 17, 2003. One of the plain-clothes officers later told court that he thought Grant looked fidgety and had stared at them.

On that suspicion alone, one of the officers blocked Grant's path and asked for his name and address while two others stood behind him. Grant was told to keep his hands in front of him and was asked if he had anything with him that he shouldn't.

Grant eventually said he had a small bag of pot and a loaded revolver, and was arrested. He was later charged with five gun offences and sentenced to a year in jail.

The high court ruled that Grant -- being young, inexperienced and faced with three policemen -- was improperly "detained" in the sense that, while he was not physically under arrest at first, he likely felt he had no choice but to speak to the officers.

"Psychological detention is established either where the individual has a legal obligation to comply with the restrictive request or demand, or a reasonable person would conclude by reason of the state (police) conduct that he or she had no choice but to comply."

That said, the police breach in this case was not "egregious," the court ruled, in allowing the evidence against Grant.

The judgment sets out a new test to help police and judges determine what constitutes police detention and the admissibility of evidence seized as a result.

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Top court throws out $4M seizure after illegal search

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OTTAWA - The need to acquire crucial evidence is no excuse for police misconduct that tramples Charter rights, says Canada's top court. The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday threw out a drug conviction linked to a cocaine seizure worth up to $4 million because the police search "flagrantly" breached the suspect's Charter protections.

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Police seizure of text messages violated 4th Amendment, judge rules

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Police seizure of text messages violated 4th Amendment, judge rules

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This article relates to the rights citizens have from police and legal agents. This case shows a couple who were being charged for murdering their 6 year-old son. The officer for this case decided to look through the mobile phone without consent and discovered some evidence which proved the murder. The judge deemed it illegal for the officer to search the phone without consent.

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At 6:08am, on October 4, 2009, Trisha Oliver frantically called 911 from her apartment in Cranston, Rhode Island when her six-year-old son, Marco Nieves, stopped breathing. The Fire Department took Marco to Hasbro Children's Hospital, where he was found to be in full cardiac arrest. He died 11 hours later.

By 6:20am, Sgt. Michael Kite of the Cranston Police Department had arrived at the apartment, where he found Oliver, her boyfriend Michael Patino, and their 14-month-old daughter, Jazlyn Oliver. Kite observed a couple of stripped beds and linens on the floor, a trash can with vomit inside it, dark brown vomit in a toilet, and, crucially, a cell phone on the kitchen counter. Kite picked up the cell phone, and it was at that point-in the just-released opinion of a Rhode Island state court-that police proceeded to mangle a murder case and violate Patino's Fourth Amendment rights by viewing text messages without a warrant.

Kite viewed a text message on the phone, which was owned by Trisha Oliver, reading "Wat if I got 2 take him 2 da hospital wat do I say and dos marks on his neck omg." The message was sent from Oliver to Patino, although the sending of the message apparently failed. There were other messages on the phone "with profane language and references to punching Marco-three times-the hardest of which was in the stomach," according to court records. Patino was arrested and charged with murder.

Kite claims he picked up the phone because it was "beeping," and that he thought it might help get in touch with the boy's birth father. But yesterday, Rhode Island Superior Court Associate Justice Judith Savage threw out nearly all of the evidence police collected from that point on, including the contents of cell phones, phone records and communications provided by Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint Nextel, landline phone records, and even Patino's "confession for the death of Marco Nieves." Savage said almost all the evidence obtained by police was "tainted by the illegal search made by Sgt. Kite or the other illegal searches and seizures of cell phones and their contents."

Patino is fighting the case both on Constitutional grounds and on the facts. He says the injuries to the boy were an accidental result of horsing around.

A privacy question that remains unsettled

Savage's decision in State of Rhode Island v. Michael Patino is a bold and interesting one, because the status of text messages in criminal investigations remains unsettled in the US. Savage wrote "this Court finds that it is objectively reasonable for people to expect the contents of their electronic text messages to remain private, especially vis-à-vis law enforcement." Patino had a right to privacy for his text message conversations, whether police took them from his phone or Oliver's, and a right to privacy in the apartment because he frequently stayed there, making it one of his residences.

"Based on the tsunami of illegal evidence collected by the Cranston Police Department, this Court grants Defendant's suppression motions and excludes the State's core evidence from being used at trial, including the text messages, all cell phones and their contents, all cell phone records, and critical portions of the Defendant's videotaped statement and his written statement given to the police," Savage wrote. "In addition, this Court finds that the Defendant made a preliminary showing that numerous sworn statements made by police officers in a dozen warrant affidavits were either deliberately false or made in reckless disregard of the truth so as to entitle him to a Franks hearing subject to further argument on additional preliminary issues."

The cell phone searches were "illegal as warrantless or in excess of the warrants obtained," and "As such, all of these searches and seizures, therefore, were unreasonable in violation of the Fourth Amendment," the judge wrote.

Savage reasoned that cell phone contents are deserving of Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures because people generally keep them on their person at all times. "Text messages are often raw, unvarnished, and immediate; revealing the most intimate of thoughts and emotions to those who are expected to guard them from publication," she wrote, further stating that the court "does not find that the remote possibility that an unintended party will receive a text message due to his or her possession of another person's cell phone is sufficient to destroy an objective expectation of privacy in such a message."

But Savage's decision is unlikely to be the final word on this topic. Savage herself noted that the US Supreme Court has declined to provide guidance to lower courts. "Even the United States Supreme Court has struggled with the legal challenges raised by emerging technology, most especially in the realm of cellular phones and their contents," she wrote. "Indeed, in City of Ontario [California] v. Quon [ a case decided in 2010], the parties asked the high court to decide whether text messages should be afforded Fourth Amendment privacy protection. But the Supreme Court declined, choosing instead to decide the case on narrower grounds and allow this question to percolate in the lower courts."

An Associated Press story on the Patino case noted that "Georgia's Supreme Court this year ruled a similar search was legal, but the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled such searches improper." The Patino trial was scheduled to begin Monday, but Savage canceled jury selection, the AP reported. Patino's lawyer, David Cooper, said he'll request bail for Patino, who has been imprisoned for almost three years. Savage's decision was also reported by the Providence Journal, which posted the entire 190-page ruling online (PDF).

Most Rhode Island departments do seek warrants before gathering text messages as evidence, Cooper reportedly said. "Why Cranston opted not to do it is beyond me," Cooper said outside the courtroom.

Cranston police ended up obtaining more than a dozen warrants to seize evidence, including cell phones owned by both Oliver and Patino. But the affidavit used to obtain the first search warrant contained no information about text messages or cell phones, even though Sgt. Michael Gates claimed police seized phones from the apartment based on the authority of that first warrant. This was inaccurate both because the warrant did not grant that authority, and because police actually seized Patino's phone "off [his] person at the station."

Just how private cellular communications are depends very much on each court and police department, it seems. A ruling in the state of Washington in July found in favor of police officers who seized an iPhone from a suspected drug dealer and sent text messages on the device in order to locate and arrest one of his customers.

Separately, a trove of documents obtained by the ACLU in April seems to illustrate a " surveillance free-for-all" in which each police department is free to apply its own legal standard to surveillance conducted with assistance of cell phone companies.

The state of Rhode Island is expected to appeal Savage's decision.

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Police seizure of text messages violated 4th Amendment, judge rules

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At 6:08am, on October 4, 2009, Trisha Oliver frantically called 911 from her apartment in Cranston, Rhode Island when her six-year-old son, Marco Nieves, stopped breathing. The Fire Department took Marco to Hasbro Children's Hospital, where he was found to be in full cardiac arrest. He died 11 hours later.

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This comic picture shows an officer who is about to kick down a door. It also shows a warrant that the officer is holding. They are allowed to kick it down if the court gives them the "No Knock" Search Warrant. This picture basically describes what a search and seizure looks like.

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This picture shows an officer searching though someone's car. Either he has a warrant to search the car or he pulled someone over and decided to search the car. This picture basically describes what a search and seizure looks like.

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This picture shows the officer searching the trunk of a car. Either this person is searching for the object he was informed about or maybe he saw some illegal substances in the car and then decided to do a full search. This picture basically describes what a search and seizure looks like.

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What is the plain view search and seizure?

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What is the plain view search and seizure?

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This video shows an attorney describing the way "Search and Seizure" works. The object that is being seized must be in clear view of the officer and then he/she can act from that information. It can't be that the officer was taking a walk downtown and peaks into the backyard of a couple to see them smoking marijuana. That officer trespassed into a private property and invaded into their privacy.

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What is the plain view search and seizure?

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Police Violate Civil Rights Illegal Search and Seizure and Arrest

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Police Violate Civil Rights Illegal Search and Seizure and Arrest

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This video shows an officer doing an illegal search of his car and then arresting him. It is illegal to search someone's property if it had nothing to do with the initial cause. In this case, the officer pulled him over because of his lights but then he went on to search his truck which had nothing related to the lights.

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Rights Violated During Police Interrogation

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Illegal Search & Seizure Vernon County Missouri

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Police Violate Civil Rights Illegal Search and Seizure and Arrest

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UPDATE---- Went to trial today only to have the officer not show up and got my case dismissed. Should I try to refile or just proceed with the lawsuit? He conveniently had a last minute family emergency come up, but I seen him in the back parking lot bullshittin with his other cronies after I walked out of court lmao.

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Search and Seizure: Crash Course Government and Politics #27

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Search and Seizure: Crash Course Government and Politics #27

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This video describes what "Search and Seizure" is about and gives all the details related to it. It explains how a search and seizure can be illegal and teaches the viewers the ins and outs of search and seizure.

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Search and Seizure: Crash Course Government and Politics #27

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This week Craig talks about police searches and seizures. Now, the fourth amendment says that you have the right to be protected against "unreasonable searches and seizures" but what exactly does this mean? Well, it's complicated. The police often need warrants issued with proof of probable cause, but this isn't always the case - such as when you're pulled over for a moving violation.