Class Nine: Computer Searches, Arrests, Stop and Frisk

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Class Nine Computer Searches, Arrests, Stop and
Frisk
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Computer Searches

• Special concerns - First Amendment, difficulty of
  differentiating between types of data impact on
  individuals and businesses
• Standing issues - multiple users in work place
• Probable Cause - use of computers often assumed
• Particularity - three questions

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Computer Searches Particularity

• Search linked to specific crimes?
• All records exception PC that no legitimate
  records exist?
• Did application describe records with maximum
  possible particularity?
• Repository of evidence or instrumentality of
  crime? (Tamura rule hold commingled documents
  pending approval of further search)

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Problem 3-4

• Warrant sufficiently particular? (not enough info
  to know)
• Computers repositories of evidence or
  instrumentalities of crime? (MD v. Pringle?)
• Should Tamura rule apply?
• Plain view for evidence of other crimes?

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Arrests

• The taking of a person into police custody with
  the intent that formal proceedings begin
• Must be reasonable
• Permissible even for minor offenses (Atwater v.
  City of Lago Vista)
• Must be supported by PC

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Arrests and Warrants

• Must have warrant for home arrest (Payton v. NY)
• Must have search and arrest warrant for arrest in
  home of third party (Steagald v. US)
• Can arrest with warrant or PC in public place at
  any time of day or night

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Use of Force to Arrest

• Reasonable force permissible
• Severity of crime, immediate threat to safety,
  resistance to arrest or flight (Graham v. Connor)
• Deadly force killing is seizure
• Police use of deadly force is permissible if
  officer has PC that suspect poses a signficant
  threat of death or serious injury to the officer
  or public, and that force is necessary to make
  arrest or prevent escape. (TN v. Garner)

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Prompt Arraignment

• Defendant arrested without warrant entitled to
  prompt judicial determination of PC (Gerstein v.
  Pugh)
• Hearing within 48 hours of arrest presumptively
  reasonable later presumptively unreasonable
  (City of Riverside v. McGlaughlin)
• Remedies for violations?

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Terry v. Ohio

• Style of reasoning?
• What factors supported departure from PC?
• Liberal or illiberal decision?
• What danger implicit in decision?
• Other possible approaches?

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Stop and Frisk

• A police officer, upon reasonable suspicion that
  an individual is engaged in criminal activity,
  may detain and investigate, and, with specific
  and articulable facts that s/he is presently
  armed and dangerous, may pat search outer
  clothing for weapons
• (a Terry stop) Terry v. Ohio

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Consensual encounters and Detentions

• Detention occurs when intentional police action
  would cause objectively reasonable innocent
  person that s/he was not free to leave or
  otherwise terminate the encounter
• Mendenhall rule
• Relevant factors statements by police, display
  of weapons, physical restraint, number of
  officers, etc.
• Irrelevant uncommunicated police intentions
• Specific features of individual (gender, race,
  education, age, etc.)?

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Next time

• Exceptions to the Warrant Requirement, pp. 332-351