Outrageous lack of protection under the 4th amendment.

I would like my readers to have a basic understanding of the 4th amendment and knowledge of many of the instances that our illustrious Supreme Court has decided that the 4th amendment  doesn't protect you though any rational and reasonable citizen would think otherwise.

Lets start with the basics, the text itself:

"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 or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

There it is folks, the only thing that stands between you and the government walking through your door t, stopping or arresting you, or searching you, your car or other belongings at will. It's not much and as stated the Supreme Court has interpreted it to mean even less.

So there are two separate protections here. Protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. We are going to discuss searches in this post and will cover seizures at a later time.

The first question, to ask is what constitutes a search? A search is when the government or someone closely associated with the government, referred to as a "State Actor" violates a "reasonable expectation of privacy." also called a "legitimate" expectation of privacy.  This privacy expectation is an objective standard, not subjective, meaning that no one cares if you expected privacy in the particular object or place, the question is if an average, reasonable member of society would expect privacy in the place or object, See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967). This is going to include places like  home, car, hotel room, purse, your person, telephone booth, public restroom, dressing room, ect. What a court determines to be a reasonable or legitimate privacy expectation is going to be based on common sense and be determined on an individual case by case basis, considering all factors involved. 

Before I forget, it would probably be good to know why it is important to determine if there is a reasonable privacy expectation or not. If there is, the government, (normally the popo) need a warrant or circumstances that conform to one of the many warrant exceptions (more BS for later). If there is no privacy expectation, there is no need for a warrant. all clear?  

Ok, armed with that knowledge, let's proceed and look a little further in depth at the home. We already know that you have a reasonable privacy expectation in the home, but what about your backyard, your shed, garden or the 2 wooded acres behind the home where you conceal your marijuana patch? The answer depends on whether the judge determines the area to be within the curtilage or open fields. Curtilage is defined as the area immediately surrounding the home, used for domestic purposes and intimately connected with the activities of the house. This is just my definition, once again if in issue, a judge will determine what constitutes the curtilage. The U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294 (1987), listed 4 factors to help courts decide if an area consitutes curtilage or "open fields",(the area beyond the curtilage). Those factors are: "the proximity of the area claimed to be curtilage to the home, whether the area is included within an enclosure surrounding the home, the nature of the uses to which the area is put, and the steps taken by the resident to protect the area from observation by people passing by."

 Now you know about 

Do you know what a grand Jury is, or have you ever wondered what it is? Well if you're normal the answer is probably no. Grand Jury, it sounds so important with that word 'grand' in there. This short post is going to describe to you the purpose of a grand jury and the recent Supreme Court decision in Kaley v. United States, that just made them that much more important (or dangerous depending on how you look at it.)

Here's a miniature lesson in criminal procedure.

A grand jury is where about 9 people get together  with the prosecutor behind closed doors away from public view to hear only one side of a story from the prosecutor, leading to an almost guaranteed indictment. It is used when the prosecutor wants to hide something from the public and is a sign of corruption. 

The End

This is going to be a very short rant on the UNM school of Law.

UNM has the only law school in the state of New Mexico and does not admit enough students to allow all New Mexico natives to attend. Therefore, many New Mexico natives must go out of state. I attended Texas Tech in Lubbock Texas and that fine school seems to average 2-3 New Mexicans per class. The tuition is higher but the education is probably better. Problem - UNM is accepting out of state students while New Mexico tax payers are going out of state for school.

Introduction

I'm starting this blog to take the advice of a friend. That being, to stop committing the atrocious social sin of posting political opinions on Facebook. Instead, I hope to use my background as an attorney to provide people with an outlet to help them understand the legal status of current social issues. The topics will vary; for example, several months ago, it was discovered that the prosecutors in the Casey Anthony case had done a poor job and not entered some rather critical evidence. There was a lot to due about re-trying her and whether or not double jeopardy would apply. American's being American's every Joe was a legal expert and sharing that expert opinion on how double jeopardy could be circumvented and Casey re-tried. Well they were pretty much all wrong. Another surprise came when my intelligent, educated co-worker supported the "assault weapon" ban because he didn't want automatic weapons on America's streets. Automatic weapons have been regulated and effectively banned since 1934 and he was supporting this policy based on ignorance. I basically got so fed up of people sharing their opinions and supporting policies on ignorance I am starting this blog!

I'm new to blogging, but anticipate to use the following format. First, There will probably be a rather dense legal brief type report covering the current legal status of the issue including case law, statute, and all the relevant references, which I will try to keep between 5-7 pages. I will also try to post a short video synopsis in layman terms. Lastly, will be the least relevant portion, and that is my opinion of law/issue and what the current and future social effects might be.

Looking forward to getting a few readers that wish to have a better understanding on the legal side of the issues that are so important to many of us.

Rory Foutz