Mental competency to stand trial

defense is regardless of your state of mind--> you can’t   help your lawyer put on your defense, trial will be postponed until you are competent *competency sometimes induced with psychotrophic drugs.. “drugged into being sane”

battered women’s syndrome

woman who has been repeatedly assaulted by her  husband cannot take it anymore and while he’s sleeping soundly she does away with him, jury hesitant about accepting that..it’s a defense but not an excuse vs. self defense as a justification

law of self defense

-has evolved over several hundred years and has changed with the invent of certain technologies

            -attack must be eminent

            -must be intended to thwart the attack rather than hurt the attackers

            -duty to retreat..have to show that you have tried to avoid a fatal/violent confrontation

                        Ex. Florida men set up technology to shoot robber during break in, robber camein, gun missed, dude chased after robber.  So dude is in the wrong

castle doctrine (a man’s home is his castle)

special protections for you when you are in your home

exodus (emergency) circumstance

police need warrant to roll up in your house, but there are exceptions such as if the police smell fireà can go in because evidence could burn up or if police are looking for drugs and hear toilets flushing/a backdoor shutting they can go in

stand your ground law

Florida is most famous but about half states have it, where there is reasonable belief of threat to yourself, you have no obligation to retreat, you may use deadly force without a duty to retreat

Why is it rare for defendant to take the stand in criminal cases

-if  you take the stand, then the prosecution by questioning you can reveal your prior         criminal record

                      Ex. Maybe you are charged with sexual assault but evidence is ambiguous, if you                

                     are on stand and asked if you were charged with sex crimes can really damage your   

                     favors in the case

4 provisions to Bill of Rights not applied to states

-grand jury provision of the 5^th amendmt

-right to jury trial in civil cases

-right to quarter soldier in your homes

-right against excessive fines in 8^th amendment

voidir

-Why is it important?

F-rench to tell the truth, gives lawyers chance to question each jury individually ways to excuse jurors

-for example: if you ask jury questions and realize that jury is bias, you may be able to get exclusion for case ex. Jury that was mugged may be biased in Goetz case

-Why is voidir so important? Because opportunity for lawyers on both sides to educate jury.. will ask jury questions to make it clear what they want jury to believe because at this point the rules of evidence don’t apply like they would during the trial

preemptory challenge

limited by law, can challenge juror and not explain why, very powerful tool for shaping the jury ex. You don’t like white shirts so you make that muffin bounce

1986 Batson v Kentucky

-ruled that a prosecutor's use of peremptory challenge—the dismissal of jurors without stating a valid cause for doing so—may not be used to exclude jurors based solely on their raceHeld unconstitutional for persecutor to exclude juror by preemptory challenge to challenge juror because of race

Kyllo v US 2001

-held that the use of a thermal imaging device from a public vantage point to monitor the radiation of heat from a person's home was a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and thus required a warrant. Because the police in this case did not have a warrant, the Court reversed Kyllo's conviction for growing marijuana.

-growing weed inside his house.  Need high intensity lamps.  House is maximum privacy so he thought it was a good idea.  Police thought that he was growing weed so tested infrared device and they found that there was extradinary heat coming from one or two rooms (the high intensity lamps needed to grow the weed).  Got warrant from it and found what they expected..weed.

sequestering a jury

-When is it used?

-What does it involve?

Sequestering is used in very important cases.

-Put jury in hotel and they can’t read newspaper or see news or anything so they won’t look up case/be biased. *doesn’t happen very much because jurors would get angry as hell being put up for weeks

Exclusionary rule

-aka supression doctrine

-evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights is sometimes inadmissible for a criminal prosecution in a court of law

-a part of the fourth amendment

-established by Mapp v. Ohio 1961

Mapp v. Ohio 1961

-landmark case in criminal procedure, in which the United States Supreme Court decided that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures," may not be used in state law criminal prosecutions in state courts

-establishes exclusionary rule of the fourth amendment

-police came in her houe after saying they had a warrant, she put it in her blouse they fought.., they were looking for evidence that she engaged in obscene actions, but found porn and she was tried and convicted on ohio obscenity laws. Petitioned for certiori to examine whether or not materials that convicted her were legally obscene

Katz V. United States 1967

-case discussing the nature of the "right to privacy" and the legal definition of a "search." 

-overruled Olmstead v. United States and Goldman v. United States. Katz also restricted Fourth Amendment protection to all areas where a person has a "reasonable expectation of privacy".

-Katz used phonebooth to transmit illegal gambling wagers, police put electronic recording device in booth to convict katz, katz argued that it was an illegal search.seizure

-ruling:

• Regardless of the location, a conversation is protected from unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment if it is made with a “reasonable expectation of privacy”.
• Wiretapping counts as a search (physical intrusion is not necessary).
• dude went in phone booth and closed the door behind him, therewas some expectation of privacy

Without a warrant, the government installed a GPS device on the suspect's car and continuously monitored the suspect for 28 days

-Court ruled unanimously held that "the Government's installation of a GPS device on a target's vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle's movements, constitutes a 'search'" under the Fourth Amendment.

- government's actions of installing a GPS device as a trespass on private property, thus constituting a "search" when combined with that device's monitoring

-warrantless search. At end of 30 days used evidence of where he had gone and tracked his movements and convicted of conspiring to sell cocaine. Convicted. Big drug coo for Washington police and sentenced to life in prison

-the Court rejected incorporation of the exclusionary rule by way of the Fourteenth Amendment *fourth amendment held to states, but not exclusionary rule

-overulled by Mapp v. Ohio 1961 (ourt explicitly overruled Wolf and made the Fourth Amendment (including the exclusionary rule) applicable in state proceedings as an essential part of criminal procedure)

-overruled by Katz v. US

wiretapping is not transpass because doesn’t involve going on someone’s property because all you did was listen in to whatever voice was communicating. Not violation against 4^th amendment. Doctrine proved to be too limiting

-Olmstead selling,transporting alcohol (against Prohibition) by phone, police convicted him from wiretapping his phone, Olmstead argued that it was a violationg of his 4th amendment right to privacy

-ruling: there are expectations of privacy, but of course someone expects privacy if they are doing something illegal

-before 14 amendment's ratification in

-court held that Bill of Rights only applied to federal government

- Barron, co-owned a profitable wharf in the Baltimore harbor, sued the mayor of Baltimore for damages, claiming that when the city had diverted the flow of streams while engaging in street construction, it had created mounds of sand and earth near his wharf making the water too shallow for most vessels

-court ruled that fifth amendment's eminent domain is a restriction only on the federal government

-Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside the curtilage of a home.

-greenwoods had illegal drugs in home. Police officer dind’t have warrant but talked to trash collectors and they agreed to not mix up greenwood’s trash with the general trash and put greenwood’s plastic bags in an empty truck and turned it into the police and it served as evidence for the police to get a warrant.  Warrant to search greenwood’s house and they found all kind of drug paraphernalia cocaine and hasheesh etc.  greenwood’s arrested and charged with a felony

-supreme court: was warrantless search okay? Garabage bags were set outside on curb tied like everyone else’s garbage bags (was that an objective expectation of privacy that society should have respected?) greenwood’s didn’t expect garbage to be opened up  Harlem test is quoted on page 93-‘people put garbage outside purposely and so doesn’t need protection **curb doesn’t count as curtilege, court said curb not subject to fourth amendmt protection

-court decided no warrant was necessary to search trash because it was put outside

California v. Ciraolo 1986

-ruled that warrantless aerial observation of a person's backyard did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

- Ciraol grew weed in backyard, police got tip and flew over in airplane (alt 0f 1000 ft), used naked eye observation to get warrant

-"The Fourth Amendment simply does not require the police traveling in the public airways at this altitude to obtain a warrant in order to observe what is visible to the naked eye."

-decision which held that police officials do not need a warrant to observe an individual's property from public airspace

-police received tip that dude was growing weed behind home in a partially covered greenhouse, sheriff circled property with helicopter, sheriff saw weed with naked eye, warrant obtained, found weed, riley argued that 4th amendmt rights violated

-court ruled that there was no expectation of privacy because anyone could have legally flown over house at 400ft and saw weed ALSO flying helicopter didn't disturb property (no significant noise, wind, etc)

Probable Cause

-Definition

-When is it needed?

-“refers to facts or evidence that would makea reasonable being think that wrongdoing is being or will be committed”

-basis for obtaining warrant and on the spot decisions made for police

 -slightly more than reasonable suspicion, more than suspicion (have something more than suspicion), and much  less than beyond a reasonable test (test only in criminal trial) aka roughly 51% certainty

Kyllo v US 2001

-held that the use of a thermal imaging device from a public vantage point to monitor the radiation of heat from a person's home was a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, and thus required a warrant. Because the police in this case did not have a warrant, the Court reversed Kyllo's conviction for growing marijuana.

- Kyllo growing weed inside his house.  Need high intensity lamps.  House is maximum privacy so he thought it was a good id.  Police though that he was growing weed so tested infrared device and they found that there was extradinary heat coming fromone or two rooms (the high intensity lamps needed to grow the weed).  Got warrant from it and found what they expected..weed.

-white militia attacked freedman

-some of the white mob was indicted

-court ruled that first amendment's right of assembly and second amendment did not apply to the states (REAFFIRMED BARRON V. BALTIMORE 1833)