Bill of Rights For Real Life: Criminal Procedure

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0:23 one of the things that separates America from a dictatorship is the Fourth Amendment because in a dictatorship the police agents are basically able to search anybody’s home whenever they want

0:46 to whenever they think that there’s any suspicion at all whenever they think it’s a good idea those homes are vulnerable to police searches the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that uh government may not conduct a search or seizure of an individual uh that means may not interfere with your privacy unless there

1:09 is probable cause to believe that that particular individual has committed a crime or will commit a crime your hands up hey open the door uh this was a very important guarantee in light of the history of of mass searches that were conducted by by

1:30 uh British officials where they would just you know go into places of business and homes and just look uh conduct these braget searches for evidence of a crime our framers wisely decided that before government could interfere with your freedom of movement of your privacy it had to have a particularized justification for doing so they divided

1:52 the power between two separate branches of our government because they did not want that the police to have the power all in one branch for the police to decide among themselves when they thought it would be a good idea to raid a home or a business by separating the power between two separate branches of our government the founders thought that they were giving the police enough power

2:13 to investigate crimes and apprehend criminals but not so much power that it would lead to government harassment of innocent citizens stand right there problem as a result of an arrest warrant and uh previous buys that were

2:35 made here we’ve now served a warrant and seize of this apartment what the fourth amendment requires is that a search may not be undertaken unless there is probable cause and probable cause in that context means a good reason to undertake the search now it doesn’t

2:55 necessarily mean that it is more likely than not that evidence of a crime would be found in the surge but it does mean that a fair-minded person in the position of the police officer would have to have a good reason for thinking that there would be that kind of evidence with respect to arrests we’re talking about the power of government to

3:15 deprive someone of their Liberty to take someone away from their family to put handcuffs on them and to put them in jail we got War for the half man with respect to search warrants we’re talking about the power to break down the front door of somebody’s home and to potentially hold the people in

3:36 the home at gunpoint while the police officers turn the place upside down looking for evidence of a crime we don’t want uh those Powers Unleashed on the basis of rumor gossip or simply the hunch of the local sheriff and that’s why the founders established

3:56 probable cause they established a higher threshold before the police are able to exercise those Powers although the police are bound by the Fourth Amendment occasionally they do not follow the law and conduct searches without probable cause or search warrants to help deter this courts refuse to allow prosecutors to use such illegally seized evidence in

4:16 court it’s called the exclusionary rule because any evidence seized in such an improper manner is excluded by the court we’ve had instances in this country where the exclusionary rule has not been in place in the city of Cincinnati for example in 1959 the exclusionary rule was not in place and the police only applied for a single search warrant

4:38 during the entire year so we know that when the exclusionary rule is not in place the police do not bother applying for search warant applications I think we’ve been mobilized as the downside of the exclusionary rule is that it’s costly but also inefficient

5:00 it’s costly because it prevents the public and juries from knowing the whole truth and of course that is a very important cost that our system pays the primary purpose of a criminal trial or of any trial is to bring out the truth and when the system cannot do that that is a significant

5:21 disadvantage it’s also inefficient the exclusionary rule is inefficient because it does not it does not punish primarily the officer who did not comply with the Fourth Amendment so perhaps a better way would be to impose a fine on the officer but still allow the jury to see the evidence there will often be

5:42 disagreement over what makes a search unreasonable over how to deter some overzealous police without undermining the ability of all police to fight crime that’s understandable at the heart of the Fourth Amendment and many other protections of the Bill of Rights lies one fundamental question how best to balance society’s need to maintain order

6:02 against your right my right the right of all citizens to personal Liberty I’m Tim O’Brien