Gift Cards Case Summary

I, Judge Yen, find the evidence of the gift cards seized from Turner Round’s car inadmissible on the grounds of the violation of his 4th Amendment rights. Starting from the beginning, the stop that Officer Oliver Towns made of Mr. Round for a broken headlight is constitutional. Officer Towns verification of Round’s identity and vehicular history is also constitutional because it is an established police procedure. From verifying Mr. Round’s identity he discovered there was an active arrest warrant for the possession of marijuana and is allowed to arrest Mr. Round on those grounds. Although in the facts of the case, it is never explicitly stated that Mr. Round was arrested and read his Miranda rights, it is objectively clear that he is under arrest since Officer Towns placed Mr. Round in the back of

Round’s case, he did not exhibit any signs that would point to the immediate usage of drugs. Officer Towns could go as far as verifying that what was in the plastic bag was indeed gift cards, but the actions that he took from then on are unconstitutional. The illegality of the gift cards were not immediate apparent that Officer Towns had to scan the gift cards in his patrol car, but he admitted that even that scan proved useless in understanding the illegality of the gift cards. Furthermore, he had to bring the gift cards back to his precinct’s cyber-forensics department to determine whether or not the gift cards were illegal. In another landmark case Arizona v. Hicks, the warrantless search of the stereo was unconstitutional because it was not immediately apparent that the stereo was stolen without the procedure following it. The plain view doctrine could be used to confirm that there were gift cards in the bag, but it does not validate the warrantless scan of the gift cards by Officer Towns. Also, the unconstitutional search of the cards done by Officer Towns leads to the unconstitutional search of the