Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment Rights and USA Patriot Act - Assignment Example

Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments Rights KATZ V. UNITED STATES The cause was argued by Burton Marks and Harvey A. Schneider and subsequently filed briefs for the petitioner. On the other hand, John S. Martin, Jr supported the cause of the United States in conjunction with Acting Solicitor General Spritzer, Assistant Attorney General Vision, and Beatrice Rosenberg. Mr. Justice Stewart delivered the opinion of the court. Issue of the case The petitioner was disturbed by the following two issues; The Court was ask to determine whether a public telephone booth is a constitutionally protected area so that evidence acquired by attaching an electronic listening recording gadget to the top of such a booth is done in a violation of the right to privacy of the user of the booth. In addition, the Court was to consider whether physical penetration of a constitutionally protected area is required before a search and seizure is said to be in violation of Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In their rulings, the Judges declined to adopt the formulation of the issues. In the first formulation, the Judges held that the correct solution to the Fourth Amendment challenge is not necessarily promoted by incantation of the phrase, ‘constitutionally protected area.’ In addition, the Fourth Amendment cannot be translated into a general constitutional ‘right to privacy.’ The Fourth Amendment is solely meant to safeguard individual’s privacy against some kinds of governmental intrusion with its privacy stretching and has no attachment to privacy (Belknap, 2004). The governmental invasion of individual privacy is protected against by other provisions in the Constitution. However, the protection of a person’s general right to privacy is alluded to the protection of one’s right to his property and his life that solely determined by the law of the individual States. The issues were formulated in a misleading manner, and hence the parties attributed great significance to the characterization of the telephone booth from which the petitioner placed his calls. The strenuously suggested that the booth was a constitutionally protected area while the government held that booth was not a constitutionally protected area. Conclusion The government activities in electronically listening to and recording the petitioner’s words violated the privacy upon which the defendant justifiably relied while using the telephone booth and hence constituted as search and seizure as regard to the Fourth Amendment (Stange, 1994). The concern is to determine whether the search and seizure conducted complied with the constitutional standards. The Court found it plausible to argue that language aimed particularly during searches and seizures of things that can be searched and seized might safeguard privacy by being employed to eavesdropped evidence of conversations that can neither be searched nor seized. Importance of Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments The three Amendments are envisaged in the United States Constitutions Bill of Rights. They form a greater part of the United States Bill of Rights together with other 7 of the first ten Amendments ratified in 1971. They represent the base upon which all other amendments are embedded. The primary objective for the ratification of the Amendments (Bill of Rights) was to bar the federal government from infringing on the affairs and individual freedom of the United States citizens (Belknap, 2004). In absentia of these three Amendments, the government today would possess more power over individuals than the initial settlers originally intended as they drafted the United States Constitution. Fourth Amendment The main provision of the Fourth Amendment is to protect individuals against unreasonable search and seizure. The Fourth Amendment provides citizens the right to privacy. It therefore, makes it illegal for government officials to such and seize any property as houses, anything on a person, papers, and effects without proper cause granted and affirmed by the Judge (Belknap, 2004). The exclusory rule bars use in federal court of illegally seized evidence. Therefore, the Fourth Amendment is important in promoting judicial integrity and to prohibit illegal police conduct as was seen in Weeks v. United States. Fifth Amendment The main provision of the Fifth Amendment is to ensure the right to due process, self-incrimination, eminent domain and double jeopardy. Due process provides that citizens have the right to a fair and speedy trial in the Court of law before any of their freedom is deprived. Self-incrimination is based on the phrase, ‘I plead the Fifth.’ The self-incrimination states that a person does not have to testify against one’s self in the Court of law. It, therefore protects individuals from being forced to give evidence in the Court of Law without one’s free consent in front of a judge or jury (Stange, 1994). Eminent Domain is also key as it allows the government to take one’s personal property and only when it is compensated at a fair market value. For instance, the law gives a police officer a right to commandeer one’s car but he has to pay one for the fair market value of the car. Double jeopardy is also significance since it protects citizens from being tried in a Court for the same crime twice. In essence, the right, to double jeopardy, was ratified to protect the government from prosecuting an individual repeatedly in a Court of law until one is found guilty. Sixth Amendment The principle role of the Sixth Amendment is the right to a trial by impartial jury of the citizen peers and a speedy trial. In addition, the Amendments ensures the right to have an attorney even if the defendant cannot afford one. The attorney will be paid for and appointed to a defendant who cannot afford one and further gives the defendant the right to be prosecuted in the district where the crime has been committed. Most significant Amendment The most important amendment is the Sixth Amendment that ensures right to trial by impartial jury of the citizen's peers besides speedy trial. The key is where it gives right to have an attorney even when the defendant cannot afford one (Stange, 1994). The Sixth Amendment, therefore, ensures that a lawyer is paid and appointed by a defendant that cannot afford such compensations. It is also key as guarantee the defendant to be prosecuted in the district where the crime has been committed. It is, therefore, the researcher’s firm position that despite that all the three Amendment serves as Bill of Rights, the Sixth Amendment offers the best package for the defendant in a court of law. Overall importance of the Fifth Amendment The Fifth Amendment establishes a range of rights applicable to both civil and criminal legal proceedings. In criminal proceedings, the Fifth Amendment gives the right to a grand jury and forbids double jeopardy as well as protecting against self-incrimination. In addition, the Fifth Amendment guarantees a due process of law before one is deprived his right to liberty, life, and property and further ensures that the government compensates when a private property is seized for public use. In addition, it provides that no individual shall be answerable for a capital or otherwise infamous crime without a presentment or indictment of a grand jury with an exception of such cases resulting from the land or naval forces, or in the militia in actual service (Belknap, 2004). The Miranda claims requirement is concerned with the admissibility of statements obtained from a defendant interrogated while in custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of actions in any key way. The defendant were probed by police officers, detectives or prosecuting attorney in an isolated room and hence the defendant was deprived the freedom of the outside world. In addition, the defendant was never given a full and adequate warnings of his rights at the outset of the questioning process. Furthermore, the interrogation elicited oral admissions with the three of the cases employed signed statements that were subsequently admitted in the trial (Stange, 1994). These events violated the Fifth Amendments based on incommunicado interrogation of individuals in a police-dominated atmosphere culminating into self-incriminating statements without full warnings of constitutional rights. The Miranda was the violated in the Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S 436, and 86 S.Ct. 1602 (1996). The inherent coercive nature of in-custody interrogation, police have to inform a suspect of his right to remain silent and his right to counsel prior to any interrogations (Belknap, 2004). The police should therefore never subject the suspect to coercive conduct since the behavior is enough to overcome the will of the accused given her particular vulnerabilities and the circumstances of the interrogation that resulted in the involuntary statements under the totality of circumstances test. Instances Fourth Amendment Protect against Unlawful Search and Seizure The Fourth Amendments protects against the Unlawful Seizure and Search where the intrusion is a product of Government Action. The Fourth Amendment also protects against search and seizure when the intrusion breaches the society’s reasonable expectation of privacy. In addition, the amendments protect where the intrusion violates the legitimate expectation of privacy of the individual in question. Therefore, the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure and gives the defendant an opportunity to demonstrate that he has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched. Prong Test and Justification in Katz v. United States Common Law Transparency Trespassory and Jone’s Test In the United V. Jones, where the government installed a GPS device on a target’s vehicle without and proceeded to monitor his movement on public streets for several months. The Common Law Transparency Trespassory test was the standard prior to the reasonable expectation of privacy test set forth in Katz in determining that the placement of GPS constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment. The Court held that Jones Fourth Amendment rights do not represent the Katz formulation. The test bottom-line is to assure preservation of that degree of privacy against government that existed at the ratification of Fourth Amendment (Stange, 1994). The Court clarified that inference to the trespass test does not usurp the Katz reasonable expectation of privacy test as the Fourth Amendment was initially thought solely to embody a concern for the government’s trespass upon the person, his houses, papers and effects (Belknap, 2004). The Katz test thus added to but did not substitute for the commonal law Trespassory test. However, the Court never clarified on whether the search was reasonable as they held that the government forfeited such an argument by failure to raise it. In the Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507 (1967), the government actions in electronically listening to and recording a telephone conversation from a public phone booth violated Katz’ privacy as Katz justifiably relied on and hence constituted a search and seizure’ as provided for in the Fourth Amendment. Even though the electronic device employed to achieve the capture of the telephone conversation never penetrated the wall of the booth, therefore, the government never trespassed onto an enumerated area in the Fourth Amendment held no constitutional importance (Belknap, 2004). Despite the absence of the intrusion into such enumerated areas in the Fourth Amendment, the Court shifts to the reasonable expectation of privacy test. Circumstances involving the transmission of electronic signals with no trespass merely remain subject to Katz analysis. USA PATRIOT ACT 2001 The main purpose of the Act is to guarantee law enforcement officials to track down and punish those responsible for the attacks and to protect against any similar attacks. The Act gives the federal officials greater powers to trace and intercepts terrorist’s communication both for law enforcement and foreign intelligence purposes. In addition, the Act reinforces federal anti-money laundering laws and regulations in an effort to prevent terrorists from accessing resources required for future attacks (Belknap, 2004). The law further tightens the United States immigration legislation to close the borders to foreign terrorists and expel those within America (Belknap, 2004). The Act finally establishes some new federal crimes, such as that outlawing terrorists’ attacks on the mass transit; tightens punitive penalties for many others; and institutes several procedural changes as a prolonged statute of limitations for crimes of terrorism (Belknap, 2004). The contention is that the Act negates Katz provisions by allowing the authority to monitor email traffic, to share grand jury information with intelligence and immigration officers, to confiscate property as well as imposing new book-keeping requirements on financial institution. Despite the Act’s response to these contentions by creating judicial safeguards for e-mail monitoring and grand jury disclosures, entrusting enhanced anti-money laundering powers to those regulatory authorities whose concerns encompasses the well-being of the financial institutions and recognizing innocent owner of defenses of forfeiture, it effectively negates Katz provisions. The Act suggested the amendments to federal surveillance laws that govern the capture and tracking of suspected terrorists’ communication in the United States (Belknap, 2004). The Act advocated the weeding out of the federal three-tied system founded for the dual purpose of safeguarding the confidentially of private telephone, face-face and computer communications besides enabling authorities to identify and intercept criminal communications (Belknap, 2004). The tiers demonstrated the Supreme Court interpretations of the Fourth Amendment’s deterrent on unreasonable searches and seizures. The Amendments safeguard private conversations as reflected in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967). The Act does not cloak information, even highly personal information for which, there is no individual justifiable expectation of privacy such as telephone company recording calls made to and from the home of a person or bank records of a person’s financial dealings. Reference Belknap, M. R. (2004). The Vinson Court: Justices, rulings, and legacy. Santa Barbara, Calif. [u.a.: ABC-Clio. Stange, M. A. (1994). Understanding the U.S. Constitution. United States: Mark Twain Media. Read More