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The Pros And Cons Of Unwarranted Search

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The Fourth Amendment forbids unreasonable searches and seizures from police officers, unless a search warrant has been allowed by the Court. However, the Supreme Court ruled that unwarranted searches will be acceptable if: the officer reasonably feels the search is necessary for his/her own safety, if probable cause leads the officer to believe a crime has been committed, if the person consents to the search, or if the person has been arrested, and the search is related to the crime. These reasons are arguably fair, as a police officer should be able to act on intuition if he/she feels as though his/her life is in danger or the lives of other. However, this opens up the possibility for racial bias affecting the judgment of police officers, …show more content…

For some people, maybe having multiple jobs is not enough, so they resort to selling drugs. Since they live in a high rate area, cops are more alert, and maybe even more aggressive in finding anyone committing a crime. Unwarranted stop and searches opens up the possibility of racist cops (both implicit and explicit) going into low income areas highly populated by colored people, and just search anyone that looks suspicious enough, and eventually, catch some with drugs, weapons, etc. In a book by Michelle Alexander, titled: “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, she analyzes the many methods police us to conduct an unwarranted stop and frisk. The quote reads: “A pretext stop is a traffic stop motivated not by any desire to enforce traffic laws, but instead by a desire to hunt for drugs in the absence of any evidence of illegal drug activity” (Alexander, pg 66). In Alexander’s words, police officers can pull over anyone they want, and using the pretext of a common traffic stop, they use the opportunity to try to fish out any drugs, which is part of the reason why mass incarceration is such an issue in America, if you stop and frisk enough people, of course you will eventually find someone who is breaking the

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Given the totality of circumstances, an officer has satisfied the probable cause standard to arrest an individual believing that a felony is or has occurred in the officer’s presents. This type of warrantless arrest does not violate an individual’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Decision: Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the Court’s opinion on this case. The Fourth Amendment guarantees that citizens “are to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause” This right is pushed down to the state level by way of the Fourteenth Amendment. This ensures that warrantless arrests can be conducted by police officers when the standard of probable cause has been met.

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Supreme Court also ruled that any state officials that obtain evidence by the process of illegal seizure or searches may not admit the evidence into criminal trials. The Fourth Amendment protects the rights of citizens from unreasonable seizures and searches (Pearson Education). This decision by the U.S. Supreme Court enforces the exclusionary rule of search and seizures to the all levels of the government and limits the powers that police officers have over citizens by protecting their Fourth Amendment rights (Oyez Project). This case and the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court has redefined the rights of citizens accused of crimes. The decision is controversial because it makes it difficult to determine when or how the exclusionary rule is applied.

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The fourth amendment states that people are protected against unreasonable search and seizure. Would the action taken by the police officer be considered unconstitutional under other certain circumstances? Another way an officer could abuse the “stop and frisk” procedure is by racial discrimination. If a Police Officer does not like a certain race or ethnicity then that officer has the power to stop and frisk that person with no probable cause. Therefore the question presented is, does “stop and frisk” break the fourth

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New York Police Officers feel no commitment in having to treat any black or Hispanic with respect because of their race. The generic debate made by Bob Herbert in his work, Jim Crow Policing, is that stops are a representation of cops being racist and harassers as well. More precisely Herbert feuds that racial profiling has become a tool of harassment. Herbert states, “Rather than a legitimate crime-fighting tool, these stops are a despicable racially oriented tool of harassment”(NY Times Herbert). In the passage, Herbert is specifying that blacks and Hispanics were commonly stopped and frisked for their race.

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In the article “The Statistical Debate Behind The Stop-and-Frisk Verdict”, John Cassidy analyzes the conclusion of Judge Scheindlin in which states that Stop and Frisk amounts to a policy of indirect racial profiling. In the analysis it is mentioned that Judge Scheindlin feels that the these methods of approach to prevent crime is unconstitutional. She challenges this by using the four and fourteenth amendment which police violate with stop-and-frisk which is an unreasonable search, and the discrimination towards Blacks and Latinos by being stopped a lot more frequently than whites, which is not equal protection under the law. Ultimately Cassidy’s report is to convey Judge Scheindlin’s stance on the method of policing being used today.

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Race has assumed a major part is these inquiries also. Out of the 114 police stops, a shocking 96 were African-American residents, and 30% of those 96 stops were more than liable to be illegal, contrasted with 22% of whites that were ceased. Ruthlessness has likewise been an issue connected with these unlawful movement stops. It 's so basic between cops that there 's an inclination for rehashed misuse of force and it 's fundamentally transformed into the "standard".

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The New York Police Department’s use of “Stop-and-Frisk” is based on the Supreme Court case of Terry vs. Ohio in 1968. In this case, the Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment, prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, is not violated when an officer stops and frisks a person on the street without probable cause to arrest, if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the person has or is about to commit a crime, and if he has reason to believe the person could be armed and dangerous. In recent years, the NYPD’s use of Stop-and-Frisk has been criticized as unconstitutional and a form of racial profiling. The NYPD’s name for Stop-and-Frisk is a 250, and it is an effective tactic for proactive policing, as evidenced by the decline in crimes

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I researched NYPD’s stop and frisk policy and reviewed all of the material from the perspective of formalism. From a formalism standpoint, I’ve concluded that the NYPD stop and frisk policy is unethical, for several reasons. First of all, stop and frisk is not a good universal rule. This classification, called the categorical imperative states that in order for something to be considered ethical, it must always be ethical, in all situations, with no exceptions. Stop and frisk is not a bad policy, but the way it has been practiced in NYPD is.

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Not to mention all the undocumented people that feel oppressed by officers and scared to talk back to them with a “no”. In chapter two, the author presents a section titled Just Say No. In this section the author illustrates a time where two police officers stopped a bus to search for drugs. Police officers never warned individuals that they had the right to remain silent and, therefore, minorities were trapped and found guilty for carrying drugs. In addition, the book discusses the Florida vs Botsick case that states that people have the right to refuse answering the police.

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Studies have shown that Hispanics were stopped 33%, and African-American were stopped 51%, despite only being 24% (Hispanics) and 26% (African-American) of the community (Gelman, A. et al, 2012). In the other hand Caucasians made up 43.4% of the population, but were only stop and frisk 12.9%(Gelman, A. et al, 2012). Do to the disparity of who was stopped with the use of stop and frisk there were protest by unsatisfied civilians who saw the actions of the police as unfair and unjust. “On June 17, 2012 several thousand protester marched down Manhattan Fifth Avenue from lower Harlem to then Major Michael Bloomberg’s upper eastside townhouse” to protest the policy of the NYPD of stop question and frisk (Francesani, C.,

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Such cameras can create a new culture of surveillance and sousveillance, when visible and hidden cameras serve the same purpose – to create a culture of visibility and control where law enforcement professionals would have fewer opportunities and incentives for persecuting citizens solely on the basis of their racial background. Alexander is right: the racial component has been deeply embedded into most, if not all, operations conducted by law enforcement specialists (180). Police conduct their drug operations targeting mostly communities of color (Alexander 180). Using popular prejudice for African Americans and other minorities as being prone to commit crime, police justify their actions and decisions without even trying to be fair. However, even this bias is not a problem as meaningful as the lack of meaningful check on police actions (Alexander 180).

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This was the act of racial profiling which occurs in our society today. Racial profiling is a detrimental act that needs to cease because the law sees it as a way of ridding the society of all its violent components, meanwhile it 's just destroying and hurting people. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the people from unreasonable searches and seizures. The fourth amendment states: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath and affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons to be

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535 Words | 3 Pages

Sure, there are surveys and statistics all over the internet, are these really true? “Not so fast” says the Manhattan Institute, “the charge is police have ‘too many’ interactions with minorities, but this leaves the questions’ too many’ compared to what”? This is exactly the problem we are facing against the opposing opinion. An officer only does a “stop and frisk” if they see something that looks suspicious. This also leads an officer to suspicion by behavioral tensions such as nervousness, threatening behavior, and of course absence of license plate.

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Throughout history, disputes and tensions between law enforcement officials and communities of minorities have endured hostility and violence between each other. Racial profiling has become a “hot topic” for researchers as well as for politicians and by now it is likely that most citizens are at least aware of the common accusations of racial bias pitted against law enforcement (Cochran & Warren, 2013). Communities of color are being discriminated against and racially profiled by white police officers for any suspicion of criminal activities. It has been widely assumed by policy makers and citizens alike that allegations of racial profiling are mostly associated with the policing practices of white officers and their treatment of racial and ethnic minorities (Cochran & Warren, 2013). Also, individuals of minority descent will certainly recognize that they are being racially profiled during a stop that is being conducted by a white police officer.

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As a Pulitzer Prize writer Junot Diaz believes that “The Police Chief should direct officers to cease engaging in stop and frisk” (442). By using this form of racial disparity the police officers are engaging in racially profiling members of the public by detaining tax paying citizens due to the color of their skin. Stop and frisk is primarily focused on minority civilians and not white members of the community. Initially stop and frisk were minimally invasive and the officers did not use excessive force. Mr. Diaz believes “this stipulation was that stop and frisks did not involve police force, such as handcuffs or guns” (1997).

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