Law Commons^™

The officer walking the beat has numerous tools at her disposal to effectuate a warrantless search, the most popular of which is the consent search. Academics, courts, and the public appear skeptical of current consent search practices; so, how did we get here? Step back to 1969 when President Nixon appointed Warren Burger to replace Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. At that time, many believed Burger’s “law and order” background foretold Miranda’s overruling. That never happened; a handful of commentators and historians therefore view the Burger Court’s criminal procedure decisions as anticlimactic. That view overlooks the …

A competent United States Attorney should easily win any federal drug case. The elements of federal drug crimes are easy to prove, easy to explain, and easy for juries to comprehend. Why then does the government need members of law enforcement to testify as experts in federal drug prosecutions? The answer: they do not. Yet district courts routinely admit (and appellate courts uphold) expert agent and officer testimony on a wide array of drug topics—including when officers testify both as expert and lay witnesses. Were the examples of law enforcement expert testimony few, perhaps no problem would arise. But this …