Author Question: Why can plain-view searches be called nonsearches? Identify and describe the situations when the ... (Read 56 times)

WhattoUnderstand · **on:** Aug 16, 2018

Why can plain-view searches be called nonsearches? Identify and describe the situations when the three conditions of the plain-view doctrine apply.

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Compare the trespass doctrine with the privacy doctrine in defining Fourth Amendment searches.

What will be an ideal response?

Liddy · **Reply #1 on:** Aug 16, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Anything an officer discovers by means of the ordinary senses is not protected by the
Fourth Amendment. Citizens can not realistically have any expectation of privacy in
what they have exposed.
Plain-view searches are really nonsearches because in them, officers discover by
means of their ordinary senses information that citizens have openly exposed to the
public.
According to the text, the plain view doctrine only applies if three conditions are met at
the time evidence is discovered. First, the officers must have a legal right to be where
they are at the time. Second, the officers cannot enhance their ordinary senses with
advanced technology. Finally, the officers' discovery of the evidence to be seized must
be by chance.

Answer to Question 2

Until the late 1960s, the Supreme Court defined searches under what was called the
Trespass Doctrine. According to this doctrine, to be a search officers had to
physically invade a constitutionally protected area.. Constitutionally protected areas
were the places named specifically in the Fourth Amendment: persons, houses,
papers, and effects. Nontangible items not falling within the places named in the
Fourth Amendment were not protected under the Trespass Doctrine.
In 1967, the Trespass Doctrine was replaced with the Privacy Doctrine. According
to this doctrine, the Fourth Amendment protects persons, not places, whenever the
persons have an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as
reasonable. Thus, under this doctrine, the Supreme Court decided that a telephone
conversation could be the subject of an unreasonable search and seizure, a position
previously rejected by the Trespass Doctrine.