The cases of Maryland v. King and Florida v. Harris - Essay Example

? Critical Thinking Assignment: Maryland v. King Florida v. Harris Introduction Often, we come across legal cases where final decisions given by the superior legislative courts do not seem righteous for the greater good of our society. This mostly happens in cases involving the provisions of Fourth Amendment since they often get misjudged due to their confusing technicalities. In such scenarios, I believe that the overall circumstances must be considered in totality instead of referring to different legal provisions in isolation and verifying compliance with them. It is also vital that the final decision becomes source of benefit for the maximum number of stakeholders involved and doesn’t breach the universally accepted rights. This paper discusses similar two cases, elaborating on legal facts of the case and arguments presented by different courts. It includes my critical evaluation of the two cases where I strongly agreed or disagreed to either court’s decisions, concurring opinions or dissenting judgments. Case 1 – Maryland v. King: Agreement This began in 2003 when a masked man named Alonzo King raped a woman in Maryland and escaped, not to be found until in 2009, when he got arrested and was identified during a DNA cheek swab test as part of routine search procedures. DNA sample matched the previous one from rape case and hence the criminal was charged with former offences as well. Subsequently, King went into the Circuit Court to hold that the authorities were not entitled, as per Fourth Amendment Rules, to evade his privacy and conduct routine search on him and therefore any evidence drawn during the course of such procedures shall be invalid and cannot be held in the court of law. The court disagreed and continued to penalize him with life sentenced imprisonment with no allowance of parole. However, eventually Court of Appeals of Maryland agreed to notion presented by King and disregarded the conviction placed on him. In event of disagreement, the Supreme Court intervened and declared King as guilty as there is no violation of Fourth Amendment requirements. Justice Roberts, Thomas, Breyer and Alito gave concurrence that it doesn’t constitute to invasion of privacy while Justice Scalia, Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Kagan gave dissenting opinion that DNA test is too specific and advanced to be considered as a routine procedural check and is only executed when there is a preconceived suspicion on an individual (Supreme Court of the United States, 2013a). I agree with the court’s final decision in this case as it seems most appropriate, legitimate and socially correct. Firstly, nature and duration cheek swab test is so minor that it cannot be considered to be a source of privacy intrusion. Secondly, it is essential to consider the end-results to any incidence. In this case, the DNA test eventually generated favorable results by identifying a criminal that was long lost and roaming free in our society. Thus, this decision also indirectly benefits our community by keeping its interests safe from such escaped criminals. DNA test is merely a method used for crosschecking an identity so it can be stored in database for subsequent retrieval and can also be used to generate past criminal history of the guilty individual. Additionally, the Fourth Amendment rules cannot be stated to have been breached if any check or search has been conducted in pure good faith with no biased intentions. Obviously, it is difficult to prove good faith but overall circumstances, as in this case, give clear cues regarding the reasons behind the test being conducted. Therefore, in light of the above arguments, I believe that court’s decision was legally as well as ethically correct and furthermore, I would strongly recommend that regulatory authorities must use lessons from such instances to adjust legal provisions and include DNA testing practice in standard routine search procedures as it does atleast no harm to the society as a whole, if not benefit. Case 2 – Florida v. Harris: Disagreement This case is another classic example of implications of Fourth Amendment rules. The event took place when a driver, namely Harris, was pulled over for routine check-post stop and subsequently sniff-checked with a trained K-9 dog. He was later charged with possession of methamphetamine ingredients as detected by the dog during search. At another later instance, Harris came across the same police officer again and was searched in similar manner but the dog failed to detect anything this time. However, now Harris filed a lawsuit suppressing the previous evidence and claiming that there was no probable cause for searching his trunk and the dog couldn’t be relied on due to its incompetent performance. Eventually, it was revealed that the certification of training of K-9 dog had expired recently, depicting lack of due diligence on part of the officer. The trial court and the intermediate court disagreed to Harris’ petition but later Supreme Court intervened and resolved that the officer did not have probable cause to search vehicle as it breached the statute of Fourth Amendment as well as his duty to act with due diligence. The court ordered that certain tests shall be conducted to check dog’s proficiency to establish the potential number of times that dog might have raised a false alert in similar situations. However, the dog passed all tests and court was of the view that it delivered a satisfactory and credible performance and hence, in the absence of contradictory evidence by Harris, the final decision was in favor of the officer. Unanimous decision was reached through majority of concurring opinions with a single dissenting opinion by Judge Canady (Supreme Court of the United States, 2013). I strongly disagree with the court’s final decision in this case since it was prejudiced and subjective against position of Harris. Although, he was found guilty of a crime, this doesn’t give open-handed powers to any police officer to run a dog-sniffing test on any vehicle during a standard procedural routine search just on the grounds that he had reasonable suspicions to do so. This represents a condition of judgment, bias and personal opinion against any specific individual whose behavior or physical aspects give reasonable grounds to believe that he might be guilty. Performance and credentials of K-9 dog were barely relevant in this scenario as non-compliance of the Fourth Amendment had already occurred when the officer ran a dog-sniffing test without probable cause. This exhibits embarrassment, humiliation and discomfort for the other person in a public place when he’s pulled over on some other charges such as speeding, eventually subjected to a dog-sniffing test based on judgmental grounds and finally forced to give a full search through the vehicle since the dog displayed positive signs of custody of some illegal products. Moreover, on a later occasion, when he’s pulled over again, the officer shows a biased behavior based on past experience and history and runs a similar test again. Instead, every individual has a right of being treated impartially alongwith assumption that he might or might not be still engaged in similar activities despite of his criminal history. Additionally, failure of dog to detect any possession of such products leads us to believe that the dog acted incompetent at the scene of crime and this proof alongwith evidence of expiry of certification are sufficient to resolve the case instead of ordering further tests. Lastly, the subsequent burden of proof shall not fall on Harris to prove that the dog was not reliably competent. Conclusion Considering the given factual circumstances, we can deduce that the higher authorities of legal systems of our nation are working hard to establish justice and bring peace to our society through its upright decisions to penalize those who are convicted of bringing imbalance to harmony of our community. However, we lack absolute comfort in placing our reliance blindly on court decisions since it is purely a matter of judgment based on verdicts, evidences and declarations made subsequent to the occurrence of criminal activity. Unfortunately, our national legal systems have loopholes and cushions for errors which seldom result in faulty decision making that might be in full compliance with the legal rules but might be against the natural law of ethics that governs our global village. Therefore, it is essential that every man plays his individual role of social responsibility by critically, skeptically and objectively assessing the jury decisions to identify any discrepancies which can be avoided in similar future cases. References Supreme Court of the United States (2013). Florida v. Harris – Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Florida, No. 11-817, extracted on 27 July 2013 from http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-817_5if6.pdf, pp. 1-14. Supreme Court of the United States (2013a). Maryland v. King, Certiorari to the Court of Appeals of Maryland, No. 12-207, extracted on 27 July 2013 from http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-207_d18e.pdf. Read More