The Fourth Amendment Appliance - Assignment Example

The Fourth Amendment protects every person’s house and papers from any unreasonable seizures by the government and so that no warrants areissued without any probable reason. Any warrant hat needs to be issued, is to be one under an oath or affirmation specifically describing the location and the person or thing which is to be seized. The Fourth amendment only allows such searches that are backed up by reason and according to the Supreme Court, having a reason is equal to having a warrant and therefore, warrantless searches breach the Fourth amendment. A warrant is only issued when there is a possibility of finding the evidence of a crime or if there is suspicion for someone. If however, the police violate this law and search a place without a warrant then they will not be allowed to use that piece of evidence for that case, this is called as an exclusionary rule. The only time when the police are not asked to look for a probable cause or warrant comes under Community Caretaking because police are meant to serve the people and protect them and hence if any emergency occurs in which they have to arrest someone or chase someone who committed a crime, then they won’t need a warrant. The Supreme Court names this exception as an emergency exception and has linked these emergencies to public health emergencies. Another exception to the requirement of warrant is for administrative personnel who are also looking out for the public’s health and safety. They are not completely neglected from this law but are generally taken lightly when compared to other law enforcement agencies. The third and last exception to the amendment is for those with special needs and for which issuance of warrants will only lead to burden on the administration. Examples of such special needs include drug test of students, players etc. A case study present in the literature includes a fire in a furniture store in which the fire fighters were allowed to enter the premises without warrant because this was an emergency situation however, they will require a warrant to enter the building again since it is no longer an emergency and no threat exists for the public health and safety. Another such case of violation of Fourth amendment occurred when a fourteen year old girl of Safford Middle School, Savana Redding was strip searched on the basis of suspicion that she possessed ibuprofen. Justice Scouter decided that a school search was only allowed related to the objectives and should not intrude the personal space of any one. Hence, the judge decided in favor of the student. (Law.cornell.edu).The Fifth amendment also known as the takings clause states; that no person is accountable to answer or respond regarding any crime except in case of naval forces or military or in time of war of public danger. A person should not be subjected to the same kind of offence twice which may put his life in jeopardy; neither shall he be put into a criminal case to be a witness against himself. He should not be deprived of his life, liberty, or property without the dew process of law. His private property should not be used publically without compensation. The power of the government to takeover someone’s property is termed as eminent power. This taking over maybe of two types; the first when there is physical damage and the second being regulatory taking when the government deprives the owner of his own property. There exists a thin line between eminent domain and police power. Eminent domain compensates the owner, because his property is being used by the government whereas in police power the owner’s property is seized because it is considered dangerous for others. In 1896 a landowner sued the city for building a small pox hospital making it unusable for any future investments, the court decided against the landowner stating that the city police had the power to erect the hospital on its own land. In another case, a man named Miranda was arrested by the police and was interrogated which ultimately resulted in a confession. Supreme Court declared that no rights were violated in getting the confession (Uscourts.gov). The National Response Framework came into place on March 2008, to highlight the different set of priorities and functions to lead operations in various circumstances. The NRF bestows a ground structure to implement a policy on national level and coordination of operations for any incident that occurs at domestic level. Incidents can be either actual or any potential emergencies or various hazardous events such as accidents or natural disaster or even possible terrorist attacks. These events may take place in a small community or may even be on large scale or national level. A total of 20 Emergency support function annexes exist in the NRF which are as follow; transportation, communication, public work and engineering, firefighting, emergency department, mass care/emergency assistance/ housing and human service, Logistics management and resource support, Public health and medical service, Search and rescue, Oil and hazardous materials response, agriculture and natural resources, energy, public safety and security, long term community recovery, external affairs and Lastly, Defence support to Civil authorities. ESF # 08 also known as the public health and medical services is responsible for the process of coordinated federal assistance to various resources in cases of public health or a medical disaster, any incident of health and medical emergency. PHMS involves by responding to several types of medical needs such as mental health, behavioral health and substance abuse. It also extends its service to those who are at risk of are in need of special attention as mentioned in the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act and in the NRF. It covers anyone and everyone who may have required special attention during, before or after the incident. Its member includesESF coordinator, Primary agencies and support agencies. Secretary of HHS leads the ESF #8 response. After being activated it is then coordinated by the assistantsecretary of ASPR, and then it is coordinated by the Emergency Management group (EMG) via secretary’s operation center. During the initial stage HHS also coordinates audio and video conference call with various supporting agencies to brief them with the situation and to plan out the initial response (Fema.gov). Since the PHMS is made up of various supporting agencies, one such agency being the Red Cross. Red Cross helped many people during and after Hurricane Katrina, Rita and Wilma. It helped evacuate people, provide meals and snack and help people get settled during the aftermath of the hurricanes (Redcross.org). A formal mechanism which is meant to simplify the sharing of resources between states; this agreement came to be known as Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC), it was approved by the congress in 1996. It is a consolidated and effective assistance network. It was because of EMAC that more than 50% of resources came to help those in need at the time of Hurricane Katrina. It serves as a binding necessity between the states. It also automatically gives license to a person who is providing his services in one state to another state. A forewarning regarding EMAC is that it does not grant license to professionals who are traveling on their own, while other articles allow compensation of death or loss. Article 8 of EMAC states that each state is responsible for the compensation of its own loss. According to EMAC any National Guard unit that is sent within the state can only be utilized for humanitarian purpose and not for law enforcement or military uses. EMAC offers various benefits such as help is easily available in time of need, it gives a quick response to disasters, offers state to state assistance, assures a straight forward system is setup to cope with the disaster and it establishes a firm legal foundation (Vaemergency.gov). However, EMAC does come with certain drawbacks, it finds less significance in long term recovery activities because protocols for institutionalize nationwide recovery are still not developed. EMAC fails to find links with National response framework and hence it fails to collaborate with many agencies which are compulsory during response and recovery efforts. Another disadvantage of using EMAC as a recovery tool is the lack of time required to develop working relationships with local aid recipients. Lack of continuity exits in local government officials when service level DA’s, EMAC representatives and federal contractors move in and out of a community (Smith, 48). The President of United States has the authority to declare a state of national emergency and this authority to the president is provided through national emergency act, For example in 2009, during H1N1 influenza pandemic, the president declared a national emergency under the NEA (Astho.org). The New York City Office of Emergency Management was founded on 1996 and performs the functions of overseeing and developing emergency management plansfor the city. It conducts exercises on a regular basis to ensure that everyone follows the plans that have been made as well as the communication between various agencies is well coordinated(Nyc.gov). The New York City Department of Design and Construction is buildsmany residential and commercial facilities that the New Yorkers build on a daily basis. It is therefore provides the new Yorkers houses that is disaster proof (Nyc.gov). In the aftermath of September 11 attack;President George W. Bush declared a state of emergency on September 14th 2001 because of the terrorist attacks in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This declaration served as a domino effect and activated the Stafford Act, and Director of FEMA also declared emergency in New York. The City office of emergency management (OEM) worked along with the fire department conducted the search and rescue efforts whereas the City Department of Design and Construction (DDC) took responsibility of safety, construction, demolition and cleanup of the site. Although the local agencies had taken control over the affected areas but the extent and severity required involvement of federal agencies therefore FEMA,OSHA, EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers also participated in the rescue and recovery efforts. The President activated the Stafford act which lead to the activation of Federal response plan. With the help of Federal response plan, twenty seven federal agencies started a coordinated delivery of federal assistance. It was only with the coordinated work of these agencies that the rescue and recovery operation came to an end on June 2002. Works Cited Law.cornell.edu,. 'SAFFORD UNIFIED SCHOOL DIST. #1 V. REDDING'. N.p., 2009. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. Uscourts.gov,. 'Facts And Case Summary'. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. Fema.gov,.'National Preparedness Resource Library | FEMA.Gov'.Web. 22 Mar. 2015. Redcross.org,.'Hurricane Recovery Program | Red Cross | Disaster Recovery'.Web. 22 Mar. 2015. Vaemergency.gov,. 'Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) | Virginia Department Of Emergency Management (VDEM)'. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. Smith, Gavin. Planning For Post-Disaster Recovery. Fairfax, Va.: Public Entity Risk Institute, 2011. Print. Astho.org,. 'National Emergencies Act, Sections 201 And 301 Fact Sheet | State Public Health | ASTHO'. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. Nyc.gov,. 'Office Of Emergency Management (OEM)'. Web. 22 Mar. 2015. Nyc.gov,. 'Leadership And Support - What If New York City...'.Web. 22 Mar. 2015. Read More