Constitutional Law: Aerial Searches - Assignment Example

Insert Introduction Simply put, the Plain View Doctrine is a rule that stipulates that an officer may search and make seizure without a search warrant if the product of crime or evidence of criminal activity can be seen without search or entry. The Plainview Doctrine has exceptions which make observations from an aircraft not permissible. Particularly, under Plain View Doctrine, police officers or law enforcers are not allowed to fly lower than the legally stipulated altitude [normally 1000 feet] in order to view evidence.

California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207 (1986) and Dow Chemical Co. v. United States, 476 U.S. 227 (1986) make this plain, while the latter also grants police officers to use vision enhancing equipment that are accessible to the public, to examine open fields from a plane. Conversely, the Plainview Doctrine makes observations from an aircraft not permissible if the officer lacks a lawful right to access the object. This is because an officer has to establish probable cause and a search warrant to access the object, as was seen in Arizona v.

Hicks, 480 US 321 (1987). Gatewood divulges that the Plainview Doctrine makes observations from an aircraft not permissible if the law enforcement officer has not established the incriminating character of the object as being immediately apparent. It is required that chancing upon evidence in plain view should be inadvertent. This is concept of inadvertent discovery is well established in Expense Reduction Analysts Group Pty Ltd v Marketing Pty Limited [2013] HCA 46 and Armstrong Strategic Management (Gatewood, 303).

Again, the Plainview Doctrine makes observations from an aircraft not permissible if that observation is bereft of an officer who is lawfully present where the evidence can be plainly viewed. This means that the officer with the search warrant or the officer who made the inadvertent discovery should be present to make the observation. Works CitedGatewood, C. Jace. “Warrantless GPS Surveillance: Search and Seizure - Using the Right to Exclude To Address the Constitutionality of GPS Tracking Systems under the Fourth Amendment.

” The University of Memphis Law Review, 42.2 (2011), 303. Print