Criminal Procedure and the Supreme Court - Essay Example

The search on the vehicle was conducted without a warrant and this formed the basis of the case in court, whereby the court held that the police would have only searched the vehicle and not opened the bags in the vehicle (Carmen, 2010).    Moreover, another judge argued that probable cause should not be determined by the police officer searching the vehicle but by an impartial judge or magistrate (Gardner, 2009). The judge cited the facts as seen in the Johnson v. United States, Giordenello v. United States, and Shadwick v. City of Tampa 407 U.S. 345 cases.   The US v Ross case is different from the California v Acevedo case of 1991 since in this case, the police suspected that Acevedo was carrying a bag that contained Marijuana out of an apartment. In court, the defendant’s lawyers argued that the automobile exception did not apply to the contents of the bag and wanted the evidence expunged from the case. Justice Harry Blackmun ruled that the Marijuana could be adduced as evidence in the case since the police had probable cause to suspect the bag contained contraband. However, Justices White, Stevens, and Marshall dissented arguing that the police only suspected that the bag contained Marijuana and thus the object of the case was not met (Gardner, 2009). Their argument was based on the facts obtained from the Robbins v. California (453 U.S. 420) case where searching a bag was unconstitutional since it doe met the objective of the search which is probable cause of suspecting contraband in an automobile.    The case of Wyoming v. Houghton was based on the search of a bag belonging to a passenger when a police officer stopped a vehicle driven by a drug user. In this case, the officer had the right to conduct a warrantless search based on the probable cause that the vehicle contained contraband. The court based in Wyoming upheld the actions of the officer but the Wyoming Supreme Court held that the actions of the officer went against the 4th Amendment (Carmen, 2010). In this case, the dissenting opinion came from Justice Stevens who came out and said that precedent did not dictate the result. The object of the search did not include searching the passenger’s bag because there was no probable cause to believe that the bag contained contraband. Moreover, the search conducted on the passenger was quite intrusive even in the circumstances surrounding the US v Ross Case. The actions of the officer amounted to unlawful search or seizure as seen in the case of Wilson v. Arkansas and therefore unconstitutional.   Read More