Law Enforcement Officers Have Policy Regulations they Must Obey

1376 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Importance of due process

Law enforcement officers must adhere rigorously to the proper conduct of the legal aspects of policing, which consist of police officers complying with the Constitutional Amendments and the Bill of Rights. These rules and regulation are widely known as the legal aspects of policing. The legal aspect of policing involves everything from individual rights to legal procedures during a search warrant, arrest and interrogations.

Individual rights are used by the Constitution of the United States to make sure that no government branch becomes more powerful than the other. This protects society against police brutality. Every criminal justice case must be conducted with fairness and equity, this is due process. Due process gives rights and defense to a suspect in a criminal case. In order to have due process, there are three requirements that have to be fulfilled. They are; evidence and investigation, also known as search and seizure, an arrest, and a documented interrogation.

About forty-five years ago, laws like the Bill of Rights were used very vaguely. Law enforcement had the perception that they could come and go as they pleased. They would enter a suspect’s home with-out a search warrant and would harass witnesses until they got a lead in their investigation. Interrogations would frequently turn violent very quickly. Lawyers began to noticing bruises on their suspects; so they began to investigate the local police departments. In turn police officers began to use yellow pages to beat their suspects, since books left few to no visible bruises. As Chief of Justice, Earl Warren began accelerating the process of assuring every suspect received their individual rights. This process included strict procedural requirements during a ...

... middle of paper ...

...al Investigation”. Road blocks are another method which allows the police officer to briefly ask the driver to pull over and ask series of question. Road block must be essential to the welfare of the community as a whole. They must not delay the driver for more then one or two minutes since police officers have no legitimate authority to detain or arrest people who are going about their business in a peaceful manner. The driver has the right to remain silent and go about their way with out further questioning.

In conclusion, police officers also have policy regulations that they have to obey. Police officers are not the law, they enforce the law. This means that they are not beyond the law in any type of matter. On the hand they have additional laws and morals in which they are obligated to follow in order to establish an example for the community.

Show More
Related

  • Adair v. U.S. and Coppage v. Kansas Analysis

    654 Words  | 2 Pages

    Adair v. U.S. and Coppage v. Kansas became two defining cases in the Lochner era, a period defined after the Supreme Court’s decision in Lochner v New York, where the court adopted a broad understanding of the due process clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment. In these cases the court used the substantive due process principle to determine whether a state statute or state’s policing power violated an individual’s freedom of contract. To gain a better understanding of the court’s reasoning it is essential to understand what they disregarded and how the rulings relate to the rulings in Plessy v. Ferguson, Lochner v. New York and Muller v. Oregon.

    Read More

  • American Civil Liberties: Do Americans Have Enough Protections for Civil Liberties, or Not?

    1449 Words  | 3 Pages

    Friedman, L. S. (2010). What Is the State of Civil Liberties in the United States?. Civil liberties (pp. 11-49). Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press.

    Read More

  • Against Consent Searches

    1530 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...e police officers. Miranda established the precedent that a citizen has a right to be informed of his or her rights before the police attempt to violate them with the intent that the warnings erase the inherent coercion of the situation. The Court's violation of this precedent is especially puzzling due to this case's many similarities to Miranda.

    Read More

  • P. O. Michael Dowd Case Study

    1380 Words  | 3 Pages

    The job of a law enforcement officer sometimes can be tough. Officer are sometimes plagued with situation that test their ability to enforce the law and maintain order. Police officers today face a constant battle to maintain higher ethical standards. This mission becomes tougher each day when one considers the importance of fighting terrorism, drugs, human trafficking,

    Read More

  • State and Federal Authority in Screws v. United States

    4008 Words  | 9 Pages

    Outside the courthouse in Newton, Georgia, in the early hours of January 30, 1943, Robert “Bobby” Hall was beaten unconscious by M. Claude Screws, Frank Edward Jones, and Jim Bob Kelley[1] while in their custody for the alleged theft of a tire;[2] Screws, Jones and Kelley were, respectively, Baker county sheriff, night policeman, and a civilian deputized specifically for the arrest.[3] Without ever recovering consciousness, Hall died as a result of a fractured skull shortly after his arrival at an Albany hospital that morning.[4] The NAACP and FBI investigated Hall’s death in the following months and federal charges were brought against Screws, Jones, and Kelley for violation of Section 20 of the Federal Criminal Code, which stipulates that no person may “under color of any law … willfully” deprive a person of “any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States.”[5] After being found guilty in the lower courts, the defendants brought their case to the Supreme Court on appeal, alleging that they had violated a state rather than federal law and, consequently, could not be held liable under Section 20. The Supreme Court’s central concern in Screws et al. v. United States was to interpret the intent and breadth of Section 20 in order to judge its constitutionality; in doing so, the Court struggled to reach a consensus regarding the definition of state action and the indefinite nature of the rights protected by the statute. Such consensus proved difficult, indeed, as the case was narrowly decided and divided the Court along deep constitutional lines; while a majority of the Court advocated reversal of the lower co...

    Read More

  • Analysis of the 4th Amendment

    643 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Bill of Rights or the first 10 amendments to the Constitution was proposed to Congress in 1789 by James Madison in response to the Anti- Federalist movement that lobbied for an extended amount of rights that would further safeguard liberty. The 4th amendment in particular was drafted to acknowledge the abuse of the writ of assistance, a “search warrant” issued by the British government to search boats that were thought to contain smuggled material in Colonial America. The 4th amendment can be broken down into 3 parts: what activities are considered to be a “search” or a “seizure”; what is a probable cause for a “search” and “seizure” and finally, how violations should be dealt with. The evolution of the 4th amendment is long and tumultuous, starting from what it meant at time of drafting, to the controversy over different interpretations in modern times. Through all the controversies and the debate over the meaning of the 4th amendment, the essence is always the same: to protect man’s liberty.

    Read More

  • State Court Case: The Case Of Miranda V. Arizona

    1271 Words  | 3 Pages

    The case of Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436 [1966]) is one of the most important cases in history. It brought about prominent rights that are still existent today in 2015 regarding interrogations and custody. The results of this case are still seen in the current criminal justice system. However, even though the rights that were given to the system by the court, there are still instances today in which these Miranda rights are violated. The concept of Miranda has evolved a lot from a court case to a code used by law enforcement during custodies and investigations.

    Read More

  • The Stop, Question, And Frisk Case Study

    1215 Words  | 3 Pages

    Each year thousands of Americans are stopped by the police in order to be questioned and frisked. Everyone understands that each stop, question and frisk encounter violated the established constitutional rights. The legal issues which refer to the Stop, Question, and Frisk policy are associated with violation of certain rules that create a debate regarding the validity of the practices. The controversial Stop, Question, and Frisk practices require thorough investigation. It is illegal to aggressively stop and question American citizens who merely enter public places. In many cases, law enforcement personnel uses creative ways to stop, question and frisk people who have shown no evidence of being involved in criminal activity. For example, the New York Police Department’s “Operation Clean Halls” has been used since 1991 allowing local police officers to conduct the so-called “vertical patrols” by providing well-organized stop-and-frisk searches in hallways of public buildings (Mathias, 2012). Actually, the Stop, Question, and Frisk practiced in New York City by the City Police Department stands for the legal procedure, which requires stop and question thousands of people, as well as frisk them for weapons, drugs and other contraband. In fact, the Stop,

    Read More

  • Wrongful Conviction

    921 Words  | 2 Pages

    From the moment an innocent individual enters the criminal justice system they are pressured by law enforcement whose main objective is to obtain a conviction. Some police interrogation tactics have been characterized as explicit violations of the suspect’s right to due process (Campbell and Denov 2004). However, this is just the beginning. Additional forms of suffering under police custody include assaults,

    Read More

  • The Bill of Rights

    1280 Words  | 3 Pages

    Harr, S. J., Hess, K. M., & Orthmann, C. H. (2012). Constitutional Law and the Criminal Justice

    Read More

  • Essay On The Exclusionary Rule

    1400 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Most Supreme Court Cases regarding criminal justice try to strike a balance between the rights of the individual and the rights of the society. The Supreme Court has the difficult task of bringing balance between these two often conflicting goals.” (POLICE, 2011, p.181).

    Read More

  • Miranda V. Arizona Case: Ernesto Miranda's Law

    1148 Words  | 3 Pages

    Defenders of the Miranda decision say that fewer crimes solved are for a good reason. They believe that law enforcement officers were forced to stop coercive questioning techniques that are unconstitutional. Over the years, the Supreme Court has watered down its stance in saying that the Miranda rules are not constitutional obligations, but rather “prophylactic” safeguards intended to insure that officers do not force a confession from a suspect. The need for both effective law enforcement as well as protection of society dictates the need for potential alternatives to the limitations of Miranda that would simultaneously protect the interest of society in effective law enforcement while at the same time providing protection to suspects against unconstitutional force (www.ncpa.org).

    Read More

  • Miranda Rights

    1348 Words  | 3 Pages

    Over the years the way law enforcement officers have been able to investigate cases has been drastically changed over the years. Investigations used to be a very prying, and vindictive matter. Now it is very delicate. Since the Miranda case, law enforcement has been very open and aware of defendants’ rights.

    Read More

  • Planned Parenthood of PA v. Casey

    1705 Words  | 4 Pages

    Schultz, David, and John R. Vile. The Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America. 710-712. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale Virtual Reference Library, n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. .

    Read More

  • Police Officer´s Responsibilities

    564 Words  | 2 Pages

    When you think of police what does it mean to you? The responsibility of a police officer is to protect the public and to serve the community. Also, they detect and to prevent crime, police officers strive to maintain the law. New police officers work with the general duty as patrol divisions, that provides a range of experiences and assignments. The General duty of policing involves patrolling in assigned areas to enforce laws, protect public safety, and arrest criminal suspects either by car, foot, bicycle, or in some cases, horse. Police officers can also do some of the following: they Investigate accidents and crime scenes; to secure evidence and interview any witnesses; they collect notes and reports; they can provide emergency assistance to victims an disaster, crime, and accidents;

    Read More

More about Law Enforcement Officers Have Policy Regulations they Must Obey

Open Document