NCJ Number
130292
Date Published
1991
Length
61 pages
Annotation
The relevance of constitutional doctrines relating to law enforcement conduct are applied to police activities and conduct, including the extraction of a sample of blood from a suspect.
Abstract
In constitutional terms, challenges to law enforcement conduct usually rest on provisions guaranteeing protection from compelled self-incrimination, right to privacy and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, right to counsel, and general rights to due process of law. Perhaps in part because of the limited applicability of the fifth amendment, the fourth amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures has become the major Federal constitutional vehicle for regulating police conduct in the gathering of evidence. Several threshold issues are presented by efforts to invoke this prohibition; they focus on when law enforcement conduct constitutes a search or a seizure so as to invoke the fourth amendment and on the effect of the requirement of standing and a narrow conception of what constitutes a search. The fourth amendment exclusionary rule is invoked if challenged evidence is tainted by an unreasonable seizure as well as if it is the product of an unreasonable search. Whether law enforcement activities constitute a seizure is determined by criteria different from those identifying searches, and the reasonableness of seizures is governed by fourth amendment requirements different from those applicable to searches. Further, the right to security in person and property protected by the fourth amendment may be invaded in quite different ways by searches and seizures. A search compromises the individual interest in privacy, while a seizure deprives the individual of dominion over his or her person or property. Case materials are included.