Provide short case briefing for Minnesota v Dickerson in your own words using the case provided from the course text only
Heading – identify the case by party names and citation (include the date)
Facts – include only those facts that are significant to the specific legal issue being decided by the court.
Procedural History explain how the case made its way to the current level of review.
Issue – the legal question the court is faced with answering that has been raised in the case.
Rule what law (statutes, constitutional provisions, prior cases or administrative rules) did this court apply to enable them to solve the legal question(s) raised in this case?
Analysis – explain how the court applied the legal rule(s) to the facts in deciding the answer to the question posed by the issue in this case.
Conclusion – did the court affirm, reverse, remand? This should be a very short statement of the outcome (which party prevailed, what is going to happen after the Court’s decision)
Briefly answer review question 1 & 2 from Chapter 14 &15 of the course text book. (paraphrase and cite)
1. Cocaine in the Trailer. The Drug Enforcement Agency began working with an informant who was part of a cocaine distribution ring. The informant told the DEA that his organization transported drugs from California to New York in tractor trailers hitched to trucks. The trailers contained mundane goods on top, but had a false bottom underneath covering a compartment where the group could store hundreds of kilograms of cocaine.
Acting on information provided by the informant, the DEA began following an individual named Jose Navarro. He was driving a tractor-trailer that the informant said was frequently used for transporting cocaine. Navarro drove the tractor-trailer to a parking garage, where he parked the trailer and unhitched the cab. Officers saw him take two duffel bags from the trailer and place them in the cab. He then drove the cab out of the parking garage and drove to a nearby McDonalds. Navarro went into the McDonalds carrying the two duffel bags, and the police watched as he handed the duffel bags to a man who the informant had identified as a local marijuana dealer.
The police arrested Navarro and the marijuana dealer, and they searched the duffel bags incident to the arrest. Inside they found two kilograms of cocaine.
The police next went to the parking garage and searched the parked trailer. They removed a few pounds of scrap metal and then pulled back the false bottom, revealing 230 kilograms of cocaine. Navarro was charged with possessing cocaine with the intent to sell.
Was the search of the trailer constitutional under the automobile exception?
Question #2
A Bucket Full of Heroin. Narcotics detectives suspected that Norris Klymer was selling heroin out of his home, so they sat in their car on the street observing his house. After an hour or so, they observed a man, later identified as Greg Lowis, walk on to the porch and drop three small rectangular packages wrapped in newspaper into a bucket on the houses porch. The detectives suspected the rectangular packages were bricks of heroin. As Lowis began to walk away, the detectives got out of the car and asked Lowis to wait. Lowis complied. The detectives looked in the bucket and unwrapped the packages, confirming the packages were indeed bricks of heroin. They then arrested Lowis.
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While they were on the porch, the officers detected a distinctive vinegar-type smell emanating from inside the home. As experienced narcotics detectives, they recognized the smell was produced by the processing of pure heroin into street heroin. They looked inside the screen door and saw paraphernalia associated with processing heroin. The detectives obtained a warrant based on the information they had learned. When they executed the warrant, they found more heroin inside the house, and they arrested Klymer for heroin possession.
Both Lowis and Klymer are challenging the police action.
A. Did the police violate Lowis rights when they looked inside the bucket and unwrapped the heroin?
B. Did the police violate Klymers rights when they smelled the heroin production and then looked inside his house and saw the heroin processing paraphernalia?