tracking robbery
Read the article critiquing the Supreme Court’s decision on using location data on cell phones to track robbery suspects. List the reasons the author list about why he believes the Court got this decision wrong. Then agree or disagree with the author’s conclusions. Justify your decision either way. Use other sources if necessary to justify your decision, including the textbook.
D4
Nothing to declare: Why U.S. border agency’s vast stop and search powers undermine press freedom
Recommendations: The Committee to Protect Journalists offers the following recommendations
Watch the video and read the article from the Committee to Protect Journalist. A link to the CPJ’s recommendations is also available. The infographic chart provided is helpful at providing an overview of rulings on border searches. The CPJ discusses border searches of electronic devices. The CPJ points out that President Obama prosecuted eight individuals under the Espionage Act and A.G. Jeff Sessions has filed indictments in four leak investigations. The CPJ is concerned about border searches for those reasons.
1. Is there any evidence provided in the article to suggest that searches of electronic devices at the border have been used to specifically target journalists?
2. Of the investigations related to leaks under Obama and Trump, were any of those investigations involving border searches?
3. Have searches of electronic devices increased in the past few years? By how much?
4. Do you believe searching electronic devices at the border is necessary for national security? If you were in charge of adopting a policy to be used at all international borders would you restrict the warrantless searches of devices altogether, or require some suspicion for a warrantless search, or allow all devices to be searched without any individualized suspicion? Justify your decision.
D5
Jennifer Thompson & Ronald Cotton in the Picking Cotton: 60 Minutes Special
Eyewitness testimony is a big part of my criminal cases but it can be flawed. Procedures dealing with eyewitness, photo lineups, and in-person lineups have changed over the years because old procedures have been found to be flawed.
1. Should witnesses or victims be believed without testing and without investigation in criminal cases? Explain.
2. Do witnesses and victims ever lie in criminal cases?
3. In medical studies involving the testing of medicine a double-blind method of testing medicine is used in which the participants taking the medicine are not told if they are taking real medicine or a placebo. Doctors administering the drugs are also not told which whether the medicine they are administering is real or a placebo.
o Why do you believe the double-blind method is used in medicine?
o Do you believe this procedure should be used with eyewitness identification in criminal cases? Why?
4. Based on events in 2018, do you believe Americans understand the issues surrounding due processes and criminal justice? Explain.
5. Do social media movements help or hurt due process and accuracy in our criminal justice system? Explain.
D6
Annenberg Classroom – The Exclusionary Rule
The exclusionary rule was designed to deter government misconduct. It prevents evidence seized in violation of the 4th amendment from being used against the accused in a criminal trial.
Watch the video on Map v. Ohio from the Annenberg Classroom and then answer the following questions. Comment on at least one other student’s post.
1. Do you think the exclusionary rule ever interferes with a guilty person going to jail? Is that okay? Explain your answer.
2. Is the Exclusionary Rule meant to protect the innocent, the guilty, or both? Explain your answer.
3. John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer who killed at least 33 men and buried them under his house between 1972 and 1978. Police executed a search warrant to search Gacy’s house and found the bodies. Suppose the police failed to obtain a warrant before making that search. The Exclusionary Rule would prevent any evidence found inside the house from being used in court, to include the bodies.
Could an exception be made to the exclusionary rule just based on the seriousness of the crime in Gacy’s case? Should an exception be made? Explain why or why not.