The Fourth Amendment and Right to Privacy: A Legal Analysis

Project 2 - Legal Analysis
Internal Memorandum
From: Associate Criminal Attorney
To: Supervising Attorney
RE: The Fourth Amendment and Right to Privacy
Issue

As stated in the Fourth Amendment, the right to privacy supports the security of persons with
regard to their personal effects, documents and property. This means that any unreasonable
search or seizure is a violation of rights. Before issuing a search warrant, it is necessary to
scrutinize the basis of such actions. Protected by the constitution, this law may present
unreasonable situations. The client, Mr. Blacks faced the arrest because he was in possession of
a controlled substance featured a felony/misdemeanor offence. The client was also in
possession of an unregistered firearm and charges indicated knowing and intentional possession
of the substances. According to the law, the defendant had to register the firearm as per
requirements under the District of Columbia laws. The defendant was in possession of a firearm
in a known dwelling place near a co-owned catering business environment (the basement).
During the arrest by the Metropolitan Police Department, the client was watching Super Bowl.
This was in a private home at 4630 18th St. NW, Washington DC, 20015. The day was a
weekend (Sunday, February 2, 2014). The friends were having a good time sitting on a couch.
Watching TV while smoking marijuana was not suspicious because in some states medical
marijuana is permissible. This response was from a call by neighbors on the noise. The police
applied the stop and frisk approach to law enforcement but they needed probable cause to
search the premises. There was reasonable suspicion that the persons had guns and controlled
substance but there was need to investigate this based on the underlying facts (Walker & Del
Carmen, 2012).
Rule
Criminal procedure dictates that individuals should have rights during a criminal process