Writing a manual for police officers: the Supreme Court revisits the vehicle search incident to arrest rule in Arizona v. Gant

This article examines newspaper articles and opinion pieces related to the 1989 and 1990 case of allowing RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) officers to wear turbans as part of their formal uniform. Many of those opposed to allowing for this change in RCMP policy demonstrate a sense of an assumed national identity that tends to label immigrants and people from non-European backgrounds as un-Canadian. Once the federal government approved this change in RCMP policy, some of the groups that opposed it attempted to bring it to the Supreme Court of Canada. The argument they made was one for closed secularism. The policy change, however, and the impact it had on Baltej Singh Dhillon, the first Sikh RCMP officer who became an officer and was allowed to wear his turban the results of which present a case for open secularism.

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Discarding Reasonable Expectations of Privacy: A Critique of R. v. Patrick

Alberta Law Review ◽

10.29173/alr178 ◽

2010 ◽

pp. 1037

Author(s):

William MacKinnon

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Police Officers ◽

Compelling Evidence ◽

Reasonable Expectation ◽

Drug Production ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

To Come ◽

Court Of Appeal ◽

Tremendous Impact ◽

Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy

Patrick, the Supreme Court of Canada’s latest landmark privacy decision, will have a tremendous impact on policing in years to come. In Patrick, police officers sifted through the curbside garbage of Mr. Patrick, discovered compelling evidence of drug production in its contents, used the information to secure a warrant to enter his residence, and found an ecstasy lab once inside. The Supreme Court, in upholding the decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal, denied Patrick’s claim to a reasonable expectation of privacy in his garbage.

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Police recording of custodial interrogations

International Journal of Police Science & Management ◽

10.1177/1461355717750172 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 3-18 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Brandon L Bang ◽

Duane Stanton ◽

Craig Hemmens ◽

Mary K Stohr

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Supreme Court ◽

Police Officers ◽

State Level ◽

The United States ◽

The State ◽

False Confessions ◽

Innocent People ◽

Policies And Procedures ◽

The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of the United States recognized in its seminal case Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436 (1966) that police used overly coercive techniques during custodial interrogations to obtain confessions. Yet, post Miranda, police officers still utilize legal coercive and deceptive techniques during custodial interrogations. Unfortunately, some of these techniques have proven to be so coercive that they lead to false confessions and innocent people being convicted for crimes they did not commit. Some states have taken measures to protect the accused during custodial interrogations and require the police to record custodial interrogations under certain conditions. The policies and procedures that mandate interrogation recording vary in scope and by state. This article sheds light on the different statutes and policies implemented at the state level that regulate custodial interrogation recording.

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R v Bingley and the importance of scientifically-guided legal analysis

10.31228/osf.io/4p7eg ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Jason Chin

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Police Officers ◽

Criminal Code ◽

Legal Analysis ◽

Statutory Interpretation ◽

Human Judgment ◽

Scientific Disciplines ◽

Trial Judges ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

Judicial Economy

In R v Bingley, the Supreme Court considered a controversial subjective methodology used by police officers trained as drug recognition experts (DREs) pursuant to the Criminal Code. At issue was the admissibility of these experts’ evidence. A 5-2 majority held that Parliament conclusively established the reliability the DRE program’s methodology and the DRE’s qualifications to perform that methodology, and thus trial judges may not exclude DREs for those reasons. Bingley is problematic on multiple fronts. Most fundamentally, the Majority’s statutory interpretation was insensitive to the science behind the drug recognition program. Their analysis put this subjective methodology on the same footing as objective forms of evidence, like breathalyser analysis, where human judgment and bias play almost no role. More broadly, the Majority’s decision comes in light of recent findings that several forensic scientific disciplines are not as reliable as they purport to be. The Majority’s reasoning seemed largely driven by concerns about judicial economy, and in particular the worry that evaluating DREs would take too much court time. In response, we provide a more scientifically rigorous but less time-consuming way for trial judges to scrutinize DREs.

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The Constitutional Law Standard

Evaluating Police Uses of Force ◽

10.18574/nyu/9781479814657.003.0002 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 12-57

Author(s):

Seth W. Stoughton ◽

Jeffrey J. Noble ◽

Geoffrey P. Alpert

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Police Officers ◽

Constitutional Law ◽

Use Of Force ◽

The United States ◽

Court Decisions ◽

Government Officials ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

Constitutional Analysis

Police officers, like all government officials, are subject to the limitations imposed by the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme Court has ruled that police uses of force are subject to the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable seizures; the constitutional question is whether the use of force was “objectively reasonable” under the circumstances. This chapter details Supreme Court decisions—including Graham v. Connor, Tennessee v. Garner, and Scott v. Harris—and explains how readers can reliably use constitutional principles to accurately assess any given use of force. The authors lead readers through the careful balancing that constitutional analysis requires, exploring the deference given to the hypothetical “reasonable officer,” the governmental interests that justify the use of force, and the determination of whether the type and amount of force used in any given situation was proportional to the justification.

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Malpractice & Negligence: Cal. Supreme Court Clarifies Negligence Provisions under State’s Elder Abuse Act

The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics ◽

10.1017/s1073110500012973 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 27 (2) ◽

pp. 203-203

Author(s):

Kendra Carlson

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Supreme Court ◽

Health Care Providers ◽

Elder Abuse ◽

Skilled Nursing Facility ◽

Pressure Sores ◽

Care Providers ◽

Nursing Facility ◽

Skilled Nursing ◽

The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of California held, in Delaney v. Baker, 82 Cal. Rptr. 2d 610 (1999), that the heightened remedies available under the Elder Abuse Act (Act), Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code, §§ 15657,15657.2 (West 1998), apply to health care providers who engage in reckless neglect of an elder adult. The court interpreted two sections of the Act: (1) section 15657, which provides for enhanced remedies for reckless neglect; and (2) section 15657.2, which limits recovery for actions based on “professional negligence.” The court held that reckless neglect is distinct from professional negligence and therefore the restrictions on remedies against health care providers for professional negligence are inapplicable.Kay Delaney sued Meadowood, a skilled nursing facility (SNF), after a resident, her mother, died. Evidence at trial indicated that Rose Wallien, the decedent, was left lying in her own urine and feces for extended periods of time and had stage I11 and IV pressure sores on her ankles, feet, and buttocks at the time of her death.

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Medical and Legal Issues Raised by the Protz Decision Issued by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Guides Newsletter ◽

10.1001/amaguidesnewsletters.2017.julaug03 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 22 (4) ◽

pp. 12-13

Author(s):

LuAnn Haley ◽

Marjorie Eskay-Auerbach

Keyword(s):

Supreme Court ◽

Scientific Evidence ◽

Workers Compensation ◽

Sixth Edition ◽

Complex Concept ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

Compensation Claims ◽

Recent Edition ◽

Impairment Ratings ◽

Definition Of

Abstract Pennsylvania adopted the impairment rating provisions described in the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides) in 1996 as an exposure cap for employers seeking predictability and cost control in workers’ compensation claims. In 2017, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania handed down the Protz decision, which held that requiring physicians to apply the methodology set forth in the most recent edition of the AMA Guides reflected an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the American Medical Association. The decision eliminates the impairment-rating evaluation (IRE) mechanism under which claimants were assigned an impairment rating under the most recent edition of the AMA Guides. The AMA Guides periodically are revised to include the most recent scientific evidence regarding impairment ratings, and the AMA Guides, Sixth Edition, acknowledges that impairment is a complex concept that is not yet defined in a way that readily permits an evidence-based definition of assessment. The AMA Guides should not be considered standards frozen in time simply to withstand future scrutiny by the courts; instead, workers’ compensation acts could state that when a new edition of the AMA Guides is published, the legislature shall review and consider adopting the new edition. It appears unlikely that the Protz decision will be followed in other jurisdictions: Challenges to using the AMA Guides in assessing workers’ compensation claims have been attempted in three states, and all attempts failed.

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