American Search Case

The case involved a Mr. Smith whos house was suspicious of growing marijuana. The police used thermal technology to scan Mr. smiths house where they found high amounts of heat. The police then got a search warrant and found marijuana growing in his house. Smith was then arrested and entered a conditional guilty plea. Now the high court had to make a decision that would challenge even the greatest lawyer and justice to ever step into the Supreme Court.
The case started off with the lawyer for Smith making his case for Smith. The lawyer stated that that the thermal imaging on Smith's house was indeed a search and that this search was unecessary. His house and privacy were protected by the 4th amendment of the United States. The technology was …show more content…
It was adopted as a response to the abuse of search warrants in the American Revolution. The debate of the definition of search has been challenged in many cases in the history of the United States and is brought up again in this case. The Supreme Court ruled that a search occurs only when a person expects privacy in the thing search and society beliefves that expectation is reasonable. This was decided in Katz v. United States in 1967. In Katz the Court ruled that a search had occurred when the government wiretapped a telephone booth. Now seizure is the other part of the 4th amendment. A Seizure of propert occurs when there is meaningful interference by the government with an individual's possessory interests. The exclusionary rule also falls under seizure. The exclusionary rule states that voluntary answers to questions given to officers are offered into evidence in a ciminal prosecution. The government may not detain and individual even momentarily without reasonable, objective grounds, with few exceptions. The refusal to listen or answers does not answer these grounds. The invasion on people's privacy is only minimal and is usually only in speical cases. Some of these …show more content…
The police unlawfully searched his house with the use of thermal imaging. Even though we came to this verdict it could have easily gone the other way. It all is based on your view of the Constitution. Unless you are one of the people who wrote the Bill of Rights I guess we can never truly understand the constitution fully and it is proven with the countless cases brought to the Supreme Court over the years. I think instead of us trying to understand the constitution in our own ways, we should study the founding fathers into depth and learn the true meanings of their words and the reasons for why they created this great rules. Even with the addition of new technologies and advanced software we need to continue to look back at our roots which created this great nation. If we do not do this our nation will likely fall due to our own negligence and feeling of superiority over everyone in the world. We need to learn from our mistakes and build a more simpler life as they had back in the 1700s. Only then will we truly understand The Constitution and the reasons for why we have made it this far as a