FOR Phyllis Young ONLY Essay Case Study 1

Case Study 1: Understanding the Court System

Due Week 3 and worth 200 points

The U.S. Court System is a complex system that includes both federal and state-level courts. The federal system includes the judicial branch of the government. This system is designed to help society interpret the U.S. Constitution and provide guidelines for society. Court cases may concern many different topics and have an unlimited number of outcomes. 

Use the Internet or Strayer databases to research a civil or criminal court case in which you are interested.

  Use a criminal case to write this assignment 

Write a five to eight (5-8) page paper in which you:

1. Summarize the seminal facts of the case that you chose.
2. Explain the main laws that have been violated in the case that you chose.
3. Describe the possible penalties that could be associated with the laws that you just described.
4. Explain whether your specific case was heard in the state or federal court system, and include any related jurisdictional requirements. Explain the fundamental reasons why it was necessary for the case to be heard in that particular court system.
5. Summarize the outcome of the case, and indicate whether the judge or jury made the decision.
6. Discuss whether or not you believe that the outcome of the case was justified. Provide a rationale for the response.
7. Use at least (3) quality academic resources. Note: Wikipedia and other websites do not qualify as academic resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

• Examine the organizational frameworks and decision-making environment in the judicial process.
• Examine the rule of law in the American court system and in the judicial process.
• Detail the history and organization of the levels of the American court system and the issue of jurisdictional boundaries.
• Use technology and information resources to research issues in the criminal court and the judicial process in America.
• Write clearly and concisely about the American court system using proper writing mechanics and APA style conventions.

Running head: Case study 1 – understanding the court system

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Case study 1 – understanding the court system 9

Case Study 1 – Understanding the Court System

Student Name Goes Here

Strayer University: SOC 205 – Society, Law, and Government

Professor Clinton Gortney

April 22, 2018

RILEY v. CALIFORNIA

The significant court case of Riley v. California was a recent case which ended up being appealed to the United States Supreme Court where the landmark ruling was made that requires law enforcement to obtain search warrants to search cell phones from arrested persons (Riley v. California, 2014). The decision made in this case was pivotal in its application to the 4th Amendment’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure and changed the way that many law enforcement agencies across the country had to deal with procured electronic devices. The case paves the way for a future examination of technology as it advances far further than was likely speculated by the founding fathers.

Seminal Facts of the Case

According to the opinion released by the United States Supreme court in Riley v. California (2014) the facts of the case are that on August 22, 2009, petitioner David Leon Riley was stopped by the San Diego police for driving a vehicle bearing expired registration tags. Documents further state that police discovered that Mr. Riley had a suspended operators license and therefore his vehicle was going to be impounded. Following department policy, an inventory search was conducted on the vehicle which produced two handguns hidden under the hood (Riley v. California, 2014). As a result of this search, Mr. Riley was arrested and charged with possession of concealed and loaded firearms, a violation of California Penal Code §12025(a)(1) and §12031(a)(1) (Riley v. California, 2014). Mr. Riley was searched incident to the arrest, and this search produced a “smartphone” in his pocket along with other articles that were associated with gang activity according to the opinion of the court. The police officer opened the phone and observed several text messages that were indicative of gang activity and language, and Mr. Riley was brought the police station for further questioning (Riley v. California, 2014).

Approximately two hours after the arrest, a detective who specialized in gang-related activity examined the phone and its contents more closely according to the case documents. The gang detective discovered numerous pictures to suggest further that Mr. Riley was a gang member and then pictures of him with a vehicle that matched the description of one used in a shooting that had occurred earlier in the month (Riley v. California, 2014). The police, using this information, charged Mr. Riley with firing at an occupied vehicle, assault with a semiautomatic firearm, and attempted murder, violations of California Penal Code §245(a)(2), §246, and §644(a) (Riley v. California, 2014). Mr. Riley also faced a sentencing enhancement charge as the offenses were believed to be gang-related, violation of California Penal Code §186.22(b)(4)(B) (Riley v. California, 2014). Before going to trial in San Diego Superior Court, Mr. Riley submitted a motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the search of his cell phone, claiming that it violated the Fourth Amendment since it was conducted without a search warrant and there were no exigent circumstances (Riley v. California, 2014). This motion was denied, and he was subsequently convicted of all three charges (Riley v. California, 2014). He appealed this decision to the California Court of Appeal which affirmed the decision of the lower court (Riley v. California, 2014).

Laws and Penalties

The charges that Mr. Riley faced for the possession of the two firearms, California Penal Code §12025(a)(1) and §12031(a)(1) are both misdemeanors. §12025(a)(1) (Now California Penal Code §25400(a)) states that:

(a) A person is guilty of carrying a concealed firearm when he or she does any of the following:

(1) Carries concealed within any vehicle which is under his or her control or direction any pistol, revolver, or other firearm capable of being concealed upon the person (State of California, n.d.).

This crime is punishable as a misdemeanor with a maximum fine of up one year in county jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both. §12031(a)(1) (Now California Penal Code §25850(a)) states that:

A person is guilty of carrying a loaded firearm when the person carries a loaded firearm on the person or in a vehicle while in any public place or on any public street in an incorporated city or in any public place or on any public street in a prohibited area of unincorporated territory (State of California, n.d.).

This crime is also a misdemeanor, with the same penalties as the previous charge. The original charges which caused the arrest of Mr. Riley meant that he was facing a maximum of up to two years imprisonment, a fine of up to $2,000, or both.

David Riley faced steep charges as a result of the evidence that was uncovered from the search of the cell phone. The charge of §245(a)(2) states that:

(1) Any person who commits an assault upon the person of another with a firearm shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years, or in a county jail for not less than six months and not exceeding one year, or by both a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000) and imprisonment (State of California, n.d.).

The charge of §246 states:

Any person who shall maliciously and willfully discharge a firearm at an inhabited dwelling house, occupied building, occupied motor vehicle, occupied aircraft, inhabited housecar, as defined in Section 362 of the Vehicle Code, or inhabited camper, as defined in Section 243 of the Vehicle Code, is guilty of a felony, and upon conviction shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for three, five, or seven years, or by imprisonment in the county jail for a term of not less than six months and not exceeding one year (State of California, n.d.).

The charge of §644(a) expresses that persons found guilty of attempting to commit an offense, except for premeditated murder, shall be sentenced to one-half prison terms of the fully committed offense (State of California, n.d.). This means that someone found guilty of attempted second-degree murder would face a prison term of up to nine years.

Mr. Riley was additionally charged with the California Penal Code §186.22(b)(4)(B) which makes is a sentencing enhancement charge if the offense of §246 is gang-related. It states:

(B) Imprisonment in the state prison for 15 years, if the felony is a home invasion robbery, in violation of subparagraph (A) of paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) of Section 213; carjacking, as defined in Section 215; a felony violation of Section 246; or a violation of Section 12022.55 (State of California, n.d.).

Mr. Riley, therefore, faced a total of up to thirty-five years to life imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000 for the criminal charges that he faced as a result of the evidence discovered from the search of his cell phone. He ultimately was convicted of these three charges in the trial court of California and sentenced to fifteen years to life in prison as a result.

State or Federal Jurisdiction

The case was initially brought before San Deigo Superior Court, the state court in California which hears felony charges. The charges which were brought against Mr. Riley were violations of the California Penal Code, which governs criminal offenses in the state, and did not include any federal criminal charges, which would have to be heard in the federal court system. As such, when Mr. Riley was found guilty, his appeal to the decision against his motion to suppress the evidence collected from his phone went to the California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Divison 1 (Riley v. California, 2014). This court affirmed the ruling of the lower court and cited the precedent of the California Supreme Court in a 2011 case People v. Diaz, in which the highest state court had held that searches of cell phones were permitted under the Fourth Amendment (Riley v. California, 2014).

Mr. Riley then appealed directly to the United States Supreme Court requesting certiorari in this case. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in part to the arguments bearing such constitutional weight and the issue that at least six courts currently held that a warrantless search of a cell phone was allowed during a search incident to arrest, while three others held that a warrant was required (Barnes, 2014). This conflict in lower federal and state courts created a split in thinking that needed to be addressed by the Supreme Court to settle the constitutional issue involved. The question at hand in this case before the Supreme Court was whether the evidence obtained from the warrantless search of the cell phone violated David Riley’s Fourth Amendment protections under the constitution.

Summary of the Case

The United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision of 9-0 ruled that barring some exigent circumstances, a search warrant was required to search a cell phone (Riley v. California, 2014). The Court reversed the ruling of the California Court of Appeals and affirmed the United States 1st Circuit Court, from which a similar case with a ‘common question’ was brought in United States v. Wurie (Harvard Law Review, 2014). In the opinion written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court cited the previous decision of Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969) where it ruled that a warrantless search incident to arrest was reasonable (Riley v. California, 2014). It cited the Court’s reasonableness standard that is laid out in that decision as follows:

“When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape. Otherwise, the officer’s safety might well be endangered, and the arrest itself frustrated. In addition, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer to search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee’s person in order to prevent its concealment or destruction… There is ample justification, therefore, for a search of the arrestee’s person and the area ‘within his immediate control’—construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.” Id., at 762–763 (Riley v. California, 2014).

The Court recognized that modern-day cell phones were unthinkable when this previous ruling came out and they contain vast amounts of personal information in them (Riley v. California, 2014). In reviewing this case and comparing it to Chimel v. California, the Court determined that this case did not meet the standard of reasonableness established there. Once the cell phone was removed, there was harm that the digital information stored on the phone could cause to the officers or others and there was no reason to think the evidence could be destroyed now that the police secured it.

I believe that this ruling was the correct one. While it is regrettable that there was indeed substantial evidence to support the conviction of Mr. Riley, this evidence was obtained through a warrantless search, and the Court must always weigh the importance of the rights enumerated in the constitution to all people. The Court did not completely shut the door to a warrantless search of a cell phone but instead allowed the reasonableness of such a search to be judged on a case by case basis to see if it met the exigent circumstances (Riley v. California, 2014). This decision means that there could be a reason in the future where a warrantless search would be reasonable on a cell phone based on the totality of circumstances that surround that search. That being said, the significant amount of digital information stored on peoples phones does raise strong privacy issues that I believe were weighed correctly by the court to provide proper protection to the people as intended by the founding fathers.

References
Barnes, R. (2014, January 17). Supreme Court to decide case on police cellphone searches. Retrieved from The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supreme-court-to-decide-case-on-police-cellphone-searches/2014/01/17/b0f3c61e-7f8a-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html?utm_term=.0fab1739278e
Harvard Law Review. (2014, November 10). Riley v. California. Retrieved from Harvard Law Review: https://harvardlawreview.org/2014/11/riley-v-california/
Riley v. California, 13-132, 573 U.S (U.S. Supreme Court June 25, 2014).
State of California. (n.d.). Retrieved from California Legislative Information: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/home.xhtml