Legal Writing Analysis: People v. Foranyic and the Fourth Amendment

This paper analyzes the case of People v. Foranyic, specifically addressing the Fourth Amendment issue of unreasonable search and seizure and the legal writing style employed by the court. The paper examines the argument made by Robert Francis Foranyic regarding the rejection of his motion to suppress evidence, focusing on the reasonableness of the detention and the application of the Fourth Amendment. It references key cases like Terry v. Ohio and United States v. Cortez to evaluate the validity of the detention. Furthermore, the paper critiques the writing style in the judgment, highlighting its clever and dry nature, and provides examples from the language to illustrate this point. The paper explores how the court viewed the circumstances of the case, such as the time of day and the presence of an ax, in determining the reasonableness of the officer's actions. The analysis includes references to relevant legal precedents and specific examples from the judgment to support the arguments regarding both the Fourth Amendment issues and the writing style.

Running head: LEGAL WRITING
LEGAL WRITING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1LEGAL WRITING
PEOPLE V. FORANYIC (1998) 64 CAL. APP. 4 186
Issue 1
It had been contended by Robert Francis Foranyic that the court incorrectly and wrongly
rejected his motion in order to subdue and quash evidence. He argued that no suspicious
instances existed that may justify his detention. The Fourth Amendment in relation to
the Constitution of the nation of United States is considered to be portion of the ‘Bill of Rights’.
It forbids seizures and searches that may be unreasonable. Furthermore, it forwards necessities
for the issue of warrants. The issue of warrants should be done by a magistrate or a judge, which
should be justified and vindicated by possible cause. The warrants should be supported by an
affirmation or oath. A description regarding the place, things or persons to be searched, should
be provided in the warrant. In the aforementioned case, it had been stated that the benchmark for
evaluating a detention, or for evaluating any issue relating to Fourth Amendment, is considered
to be reasonableness. In the case of Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 11, it had been stated that
reasonableness should be regarded as the guiding principle in relation to every instance where
the agents of the government may invade the private security of any citizen. In the case of
United States v. Cortez [1981] 449 U.S. 4112, it had been stated that in order to evaluate the
validity of Fourth Amendment, the entire picture should be considered. In this case, the two
cases mentioned above were utilized as references. It was concluded that any sensible police
officer, after considering the entire circumstances, may rationally be doubtful that any criminal
activity might occur, especially when the police officer observed that an individual rode a
bicycle, carried an ax, during 3 am in the morning. It is expected that a diligent and dutiful
1 Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1.
2 United States v. Cortez [1981] 449 U.S. 411.

2LEGAL WRITING
officer will examine such unfamiliar and uncommon behavior with means other than detention. It
was stated that even when there have been no recent reports relating to “ax crime”, a police
officer may act in the same manner as discussed above.
Issue 2
The statements forwarded in the judgment are very clever and very dry. As per the
judgment, 3 am, is considered to be a late and an unusual hour in relation to any individual who
might attend an outdoor social get-together, specifically in a residential or domestic
neighborhood, where the accused is not living. As per the court, the presence of the ax makes the
situation more suspicious. In the case of People v. Holloway (1985) 176 Cal.App.3d 150, 155,
221 Cal.Rptr. 3943, the court stated that a detention may be made grounded upon the presence of
the defendant in an area of high crime along with four other individuals. An instance of such
clever and dry writing is “Such activity will justify a detention even when there is no specific
crime to which it seems to relate.”4 Other instances include terms like “gun-murderer” or
crowbar-murderer”. Hence, the writing of the judgment was clever and dry.
3 People v. Holloway (1985) 176 Cal.App.3d 150.
4 People v. Foranyic, (1998) 64 Cal.

3LEGAL WRITING
References
People v. Holloway (1985) 176 Cal.App.3d 150.
People v. Foranyic, (1998) 64 Cal.
Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1.
United States v. Cortez [1981] 449 U.S. 411.