This book aims to provide critical information about the U.S. Constitution, with special emphasis on search and seizure. It will help law enforcement officers to increase their legal knowledge about search and seizure and create a framework for effective problem solving and decision making in the field. It is practically written and focuses on practical ideas. To help the reader develop analytic abilities for practice, brief quotations from U.S. Supreme Court cases reveal legal reasoning by justices. An important feature of the book is the translation of the U.S. Supreme Court cases into practical guidance. Captions for sections allow the reader to locate materials on topics of concern, such as conducting search and seizure in a particular context. The organization of the book facilitates both learning and teaching. There are also legal and criminal justice terms that are defined for the reader. Close to one hundred U.S. Supreme Court cases are reviewed, and a list of cases by chapter is also provided. It will be useful to not only trainees and students but also to experienced veterans in providing an in-depth understanding of the Fourth Amendment and the underlying principles, which is essential for making effective judgments in real-life law enforcement situations. It also provides attorneys, forensic specialists, and law enforcement personnel already in the field with valuable information for professional development.

In any episode of the popular television show Law and Order, questions of police procedure in collecting evidence often arise. Was a search legal? Was the evidence obtained lawfully? Did the police follow the rules in pursuing their case? While the show depicts fictional cases and scenarios, police procedure with regard to search and seizure is a real and significant issue in the criminal justice system today. The subject of many Supreme Court decisions, they seriously impact the way police pursue their investigations, the way prosecutors proceed with their cases, and the way defense attorneys defend their clients. This book answers these questions and explains these decisions in accessible and easy to follow language. Each chapter explores a separate case or series of cases involving the application of the Fourth Amendment to current police investigatory practices or prosecutorial conduct of the criminal trial. The police-related cases involve topics such as searches of suspects (both prior and incident to arrest), pretext stops, the knock-and-announce rule, interrogation procedures, and the parameters of an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy. The prosecutor-related cases involve topics such as jury selection, the right to counsel, and sentencing. This important overview serves as an introduction to the realities and practicalities of police investigation and the functioning of the criminal justice system when search and seizure becomes an issue.

"The United States Code is the official codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States of America. The Code was first published in 1926, and a new edition of the code has been published every six years since 1934. The 2012 edition of the Code incorporates laws enacted through the One Hundred Twelfth Congress, Second Session, the last of which was signed by the President on January 15, 2013. It does not include laws of the One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, enacted between January 2, 2013, the date it convened, and January 15, 2013. By statutory authority this edition may be cited "U.S.C. 2012 ed." As adopted in 1926, the Code established prima facie the general and permanent laws of the United States. The underlying statutes reprinted in the Code remained in effect and controlled over the Code in case of any discrepancy. In 1947, Congress began enacting individual titles of the Code into positive law. When a title is enacted into positive law, the underlying statutes are repealed and the title then becomes legal evidence of the law. Currently, 26 of the 51 titles in the Code have been so enacted. These are identified in the table of titles near the beginning of each volume. The Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives continues to prepare legislation pursuant to 2 U.S.C. 285b to enact the remainder of the Code, on a title-by-title basis, into positive law. The 2012 edition of the Code was prepared and published under the supervision of Ralph V. Seep, Law Revision Counsel. Grateful acknowledgment is made of the contributions by all who helped in this work, particularly the staffs of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and the Government Printing Office"--Preface.

The application of the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule has divided the justices of the Supreme Court for nearly a century. This book traces the rise and fall of the exclusionary rule with insight and behind-the-scenes access into the Court's thinking.

Examines the case of Weeks v. United States, in which a Kansas City man claimed the police unlawfully searched his home.