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District Of Columbia Vs Heller Case Study

942 Words4 Pages

Igor Tutelman
Bryan Ashkettle
AP US Government
2 November 2015
District of Columbia v. Heller
In San Diego, California on August 2, 2009 several members of the Lincoln Park gang opened fire on a rival gang in a drive-by shooting. Among these Lincoln Park members was David Leon Riley. After the shooting, Riley and his crew got in his Oldsmobile and fled the scene. Not one month later Riley was driving a different vehicle and was pulled over for having expired tags, this along with the fact that his license was suspended gave police the authority and obligation to impound the car and take Riley in. When a vehicle is impounded police perform a search to inventory everything in the vehicle to protect against future liability cases and to check …show more content…

The United States supreme court believed so and voted so unanimously. Seeing as all judges voted in favor of Riley, their political skew is transparent in a sense. Although apparent in their opinions, their political ideologies all supported Riley’s case. Conservative Chief Justice John G. Roberts’ opinion was featured as the one representative of the court’s decision. The opinion provided that warrantless search and seizure was a circumstantial occurrence and was only to be used in cases where officer or civilian lives were endangered and/or where preserving evidence was an issue. This is simply not the case in the search of digital media because the evidence is not tangible and serves no immediate threat to the officer. Also, “faraday bags” exist to store the evidence until a warrant is obtained and the phone can be disconnected from any network and turned off until that warrant is obtained. The supreme court has, in previous cases, established that cell phones are “minicomputers filled with massive amounts of private information” and this served the purpose of differentiating them from traditional items that can be searched immediately following arrest such as a wallet. But the court held that in the event that it was crucial to governmental interests, a warrantless search of a cell phone could be executed. Another prominent concurring opinion was sponsored by conservative Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. who stated that although he doubts that warrantless searches are truly justifiably for the protection of officers and preservation of evidence the court’s majority opinion is the best one in the given circumstances. Alito finished by saying that states should set a test for when police can search phones, proceeding arrests. Overall the justices adhered to a strict constructionist interpretation, whether liberal

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