Criminal Procedure and the Supreme Court

A Guide to the Major Decisions on Search and Seizure, Privacy, and Individual Rights

Rolando V del Carmen author Craig Hemmens author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Rowman & Littlefield

Published:15th Sep '10

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Criminal Procedure and the Supreme Court cover

In any episode of the popular television show Law and Order, questions of police procedure in collecting evidence often arise. Was a search legal? Was the evidence obtained lawfully? Did the police follow the rules in pursuing their case? While the show depicts fictional cases and scenarios, police procedure with regard to search and seizure is a real and significant issue in the criminal justice system today. The subject of many Supreme Court decisions, they seriously impact the way police pursue their investigations, the way prosecutors proceed with their cases, and the way defense attorneys defend their clients. This book answers these questions and explains these decisions in accessible and easy to follow language. Each chapter explores a separate case or series of cases involving the application of the Fourth Amendment to current police investigatory practices or prosecutorial conduct of the criminal trial. The police-related cases involve topics such as searches of suspects (both prior and incident to arrest), pretext stops, the knock-and-announce rule, interrogation procedures, and the parameters of an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy. The prosecutor-related cases involve topics such as jury selection, the right to counsel, and sentencing. This important overview serves as an introduction to the realities and practicalities of police investigation and the functioning of the criminal justice system when search and seizure becomes an issue.

Both editors of this reader, Carmen (Sam Houston State Univ.) and Hemmens (Boise State Univ.), are well-known, well-published professors in good-quality criminal justice departments. They have prepared a book that covers the leading criminal justice cases in a unique way. Most criminal justice texts either summarize an enormous number of cases without discussing any in depth, or they feature full-length cases but are quite short on updates or cases discussions. By contract, this reader seeks to combine both approaches by selecting the most important cases in criminal procedure and then discussing the decisions in great depth, including the dissenting and concurring decisions. The result is that fewer cases are examined but with much greater guidance and in-depth coverage of the truly significant ones. The book is divided into nine general issue areas: privacy rights, the exclusionary rule, stop and frisk, the arrest, searches, motor vehicles, interrogations and lineups, police liability, and other police practices. The well-written book contains excellent endnotes, a carefully prepared index, and short biographies of selected US Supreme Court justices. Summing Up: Recommended * CHOICE *
A useful addition to the criminal procedure literature....A one-stop shop for groundbreaking criminal procedure cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. * Law and Politics Book Review *

ISBN: 9781442201569

Dimensions: 239mm x 162mm x 28mm

Weight: 705g

382 pages