Criminal Procedure and the Supreme Court by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Unlimited Model
Published: 2010-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Concurring Opinions

Justice Stevens and Justice Breyer wrote concurring opinions. Justice Stevens argued that the Court’s opinion validates his view that the Court should not focus solely on the original understanding of constitutional amendments and ignore the “relevance of changes in our society.” Justice Stevens observed that when the Fourth Amendment was adopted, a husband would have had superior authority over premises than his wife; therefore, his consent would be all that mattered. Accordingly, if the Court followed an original understanding of the Fourth Amendment, an arbitrary, blatantly discriminatory result may prevail.

In his concurring opinion Justice Breyer noted his agreement with the majority’s conclusion but articulated his own view on how that conclusion should have been reached. Rather than imposing a bright-line rule that focused on the reasonableness of the officer’s actions in conducting a warrantless search, Justice Breyer endorsed a more fact-specific approach, based on consideration of the totality of circumstances. The facts and circumstances present in Randolph rendered the search unreasonable. The circumstances leading to this conclusion were that the search was solely for obtaining evidence rather than preventing an ongoing crime, that the objecting party was present, that there were no exigent circumstances, and that the house could have been secured while a warrant was obtained. Under these circumstances, Justice Breyer found the search to be unreasonable.

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