United States v. Blake

A detailed Summary of United States v. Blake

Two men were approached in the concourse of an airport, a public area. The officers asked if they would talk to the officers and the men agreed to talk. Then they consented to a search. Immediately one officer reached into one man's pants, to the crotch area, where he heard crinkling and retrieved a package. The other man was searched in the same way. It was suspected (presumably by the searching officers, but the article does not say) packages of crack cocaine.

The court ruled that the men did not expect the officers to perform such an invasive search when they agreed to be searched. The court ruled that the search would have been legal if the officers had obtained permission from the individuals for that type of search. However, the officers had not done that. The court said that most people would not think that a reasonable search would include having his or her genitals touched.

To quote the reading, "Whether an individual voluntarily consents to a search is only one of the issues... the court must also consider the scope of the consent." This is in tern dependent on what a reasonable person would have assumed, based on the communication between the officer and the person searched, about the scope of the search. In United St

The important thing about this is that since the police very likely did not pick these men at random, they would have been arrested eventually anyway. The Fourth Amendment requires the government and its agencies to gather evidence against suspects in ways that do protect their constitutional rights.

Since the officers targeted these two men out of the many people likely to be present in an airport concourse, it seems probable that the officers had prior knowledge that these two people might be transporting drugs. Thus, the men could have asserted their Fourth Amendment rights. The officers could have retained them while they obtained a search warrant. Instead they proceeded abruptly and denied the men their Fourth Amendment rights.

To quote the reading, "Whether an individual voluntarily consents to a search is only one of the issues... the court must also consider the scope of the consent." This is in tern dependent on what a reasonable person would have assumed, based on the communication between the officer and the person searched, about the scope of the search.

This suspect's complaint that the search exceeded the scope of his consent is not valid because the officer communicated his intentions clearly, either verbally or non-verbally, at each step, and the person could have said no. He could have told him to stop with the pat-down, but he did not. The officer asked him to undo his pants, and he could have refused. In that case the officer would have had to get a search warrant. When the officer started to undo the second pair of pants, he could have said "Don't do that." He could have then done it himself or denied permission for any more search. The officer had felt a package. That, comb

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1154
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Politics