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Full-Text Articles in Law
State V. Pinkham: Erosion Of Meaningful Forth Amendment Protection For Vehicle Stops In Maine?, Roger M. Clement Jr.
State V. Pinkham: Erosion Of Meaningful Forth Amendment Protection For Vehicle Stops In Maine?, Roger M. Clement Jr.
Maine Law Review
In State v. Pinkham, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that a police officer's stop of a motorist to inquire and advise about the motorist's improper-but not illegal-lane usage did not necessarily violate the Fourth Amendment's proscription against unreasonable seizures. The Pinkham decision is the first time that the Law Court has validated the stop of a moving vehicle in the absence of either a suspected violation of law or an imminent, ongoing threat to highway safety. This Note considers whether the Law Court was correct in sustaining the police officer's stop of Ronald Pinkham. …
Please Stop: The Law Court's Recent Roadblock Decisions, Jonathan A. Block
Please Stop: The Law Court's Recent Roadblock Decisions, Jonathan A. Block
Maine Law Review
Police checkpoints or “roadblocks” have become an increasingly utilized law enforcement tool. At best, these checkpoints result in only a minor inconvenience to motorists. When abused, however, roadblocks have the potential for invidious invasions of privacy and personal freedom. Roadblocks are designed to deter, and to a lesser extent detect, criminal activity by stopping everyone—both the guilty and the law-abiding—for a brief inspection, thereby impinging to some degree on one's freedom of travel, privacy, and “right to be let alone.” Such “seizures” must be “reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment in order to survive constitutional challenge. The major difference between roadblocks …
Sniffing Out The Fourth Amendment: United States V. Place-Dog Sniffs-Ten Years Later, Hope Walker Hall
Sniffing Out The Fourth Amendment: United States V. Place-Dog Sniffs-Ten Years Later, Hope Walker Hall
Maine Law Review
In the endless and seemingly futile government war against drugs, protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution may have fallen by the wayside as courts struggle to deal with drug offenders. The compelling government interest in controlling the influx of drugs all too often results in a judicial attitude that the ends justify the means. Judges can be reluctant to exclude evidence of drugs found in an unlawful search pursuant to the exclusionary rule, which provides that illegally obtained evidence may not be used at trial. The exclusion of drugs as evidence in drug cases often …
Whren V. United States: An Abrupt End To The Debate Over Pretextual Stops, Brian J. O'Donnell
Whren V. United States: An Abrupt End To The Debate Over Pretextual Stops, Brian J. O'Donnell
Maine Law Review
In Whren v. United States, the United States Supreme Court held that a traffic stop is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment if a police officer has probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred, even if the stop is a pretext for the investigation of a more serious offense. The Court affirmed the convictions of Michael A. Whren and James L. Brown, who had been arrested on federal drug charges after Washington, D.C., police stopped Brown for minor traffic infractions. The Court's unanimous opinion, delivered by Justice Scalia, brought an end to a long-running debate over the proper …
Standing Under State Search And Seizure Provision: Why The Minnesota Supreme Court Should Have Rejected The Federal Standards And Instead Invoked Greater Protection Under Its Own Constitution In State V. Carter, Rebecca C. Garrett
Maine Law Review
In State v. Carter, the Minnesota Supreme Court considered whether a criminal defendant had “standing” to challenge an alleged search under the Fourth Amendment and Article 1, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution. The defendant moved to suppress evidence obtained by a police officer who had peered in the window of an apartment where the defendant was participating in a drug-packaging operation with the apartment's leaseholder. A divided court held that the defendant had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the apartment. Therefore, the defendant had standing to challenge the legality of the police officer's observations pursuant to the Fourth …
Does The End Justify The Means? The Clumsy And Circuitous Logic Of Blood Test Admissibility In Criminal Prosecutions In State V. Cormier, Kyle T. Macdonald
Does The End Justify The Means? The Clumsy And Circuitous Logic Of Blood Test Admissibility In Criminal Prosecutions In State V. Cormier, Kyle T. Macdonald
Maine Law Review
In State v. Cormier, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, was asked to determine whether a Maine statute requiring law enforcement officers to test the blood of all drivers for intoxicants following a fatal motor vehicle collision violates the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution when the operation of the statute allows for the admission of those blood test results in a future criminal trial of the driver. In determining that the procedures of title 29-A, section 2522 of the Maine Revised Statutes are not violative of the Fourth Amendment, the Law Court effectively confirmed …
The Supreme Court's Long And Perhaps Unnecessary Struggle To Find A Standard Of Culpability To Regulate The Federal Exclusionary Remedy For Fourth/Fourteenth Amendment Violations, Melvyn H. Zarr
Maine Law Review
On January 14, 2009, the United States Supreme Court decided Herring v. United States. In Herring, the defendant moved to suppress evidence that he alleged was seized as a result of an arrest that violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court approved the decision below to deny suppression of the evidence. The decision set off a flurry of speculation that the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule would not see its 100th birthday in 2014. A headline in the New York Times of January 31 declared: “Supreme Court Edging Closer to Repeal of Evidence Ruling.” Another …
Federal Habeas Review Of State Court Convictions: Incoherent Law But An Essential Right, Lynn Adelman
Federal Habeas Review Of State Court Convictions: Incoherent Law But An Essential Right, Lynn Adelman
Maine Law Review
I thank the editors of the Maine Law Review for the opportunity to participate in a discussion about the present state of post-conviction review of criminal convictions. This discussion is important and timely both because the quality of the procedures by which state prisoners can obtain post-conviction review varies greatly from state to state and because state prisoners who seek federal court review of their constitutional claims by petitioning for a writ of habeas corpus face many obstacles. As a federal district judge, my experience is primarily with the later problem. Thus, in this article, I will offer a few …
Kentucky V. King: A New Approach To Consent-Based Police Encounters?, Jamesa J. Drake
Kentucky V. King: A New Approach To Consent-Based Police Encounters?, Jamesa J. Drake
Maine Law Review
The exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement permits the police to enter a private residence, without prior judicial approval, whenever the police have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that the destruction of evidence is imminent or underway. The United States Supreme Court’s most recent pronouncement in the exigent circumstances realm—Kentucky v. King—is not a case about exigent circumstances per se. Instead, King concerns the “policecreated exigency” doctrine, a concept that the vast majority of federal and state courts already recognize.This doctrine adds a crucial caveat to the exigent circumstances rule, but it is not new. It provides that …