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Book details

  • Genre:law
  • Sub-genre:Criminal Procedure
  • Language:English
  • Pages:248
  • Paperback ISBN:9798317805913

Understanding ... Search and Seizure and The Fourth Amendment

By Alan A. Cook

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Overview

A thorough understanding of the Fourth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution is essential not only to prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges in the courtroom, but also to police officers on the street. The Fourth Amendment establishes the constitutional "ground rules" for the lawful discovery and seizure of evidence to be used by prosecutors against accused persons in criminal proceedings. As such, it is especially important for police officers and prosecutors to know the ins and outs of such ground rules in order to make lawful arrests and secure just convictions.

The Fourth Amendment provides that the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated …." But the text of the Fourth Amendment does not define which "searches" and "seizures" will be considered "unreasonable." As a result, the task of defining these terms has fallen upon the Supreme Court – a process that has played out gradually over the many decades since the ratification of the Bill of Rights. In Understanding … Search and Seizure and The Fourth Amendment, Professor Cook provides the reader with a clear, step-by-step guide to unlock the meaning of the Fourth Amendment – whether the reader is a police officer, a prosecutor, a judge, a defense attorney, a criminal justice or law student, or merely a citizen seeking a greater understanding of his or her rights under the Fourth Amendment.

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Description

Among the questions answered in Understanding ... Search and Seizure and The Fourth Amendment are the following:

What is a Fourth Amendment "search"?

What is a "reasonable expectation of privacy"?

What is a Fourth Amendment "seizure"?

How have these terms been interpreted in light of scientific and technological advances?

When do government officers and agents need an arrest warrant? A search warrant?

What is the so-called "Warrant Preference"?

What are the so-called "Well-Recognized Exceptions" to the Warrant Preference?

What are the so-called "Three Tiers of Police-Citizen Encounters"?

What constitutes "reasonable suspicion"?

What constitutes "probable cause"?

What is a "consent search"?

What is a "Terry frisk"?

What is a "search incident to arrest"? 

What is the so-called "Exclusionary Rule"?

What exceptions to the Exclusionary Rule have been recognized?

And many, many more....



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About The Author

Alan A. Cook was a criminal prosecutor in the state of Georgia for over thirteen years – 10 as the elected District Attorney for the Alcovy Judicial Circuit. During his tenure as a state prosecutor, Cook tried over one hundred felony jury trials including six capital murder cases. He also authored dozens of appellate briefs and made several appearances before Georgia's Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

In 2001, the University of Georgia School of Law hired Cook to be its Director of the Prosecutorial Justice Program - a three-semester classroom and externship program. In that role, Professor Cook taught Criminal Law & Procedure to aspiring prosecutors for 18 years before retiring in 2019. In addition to this prosecutor training course, Cook taught a Trial Practice course and coached a national invitational mock trial team.

Cook's practical experience as a prosecutor and his research as an academic resulted in his publishing of the Cook's Field Guide to Prosecution in Georgia which is now used as a textbook in three of the top four law schools in Georgia (University of Georgia School of Law, Georgia State College of Law, and Mercer University School of Law) and is widely distributed as a training manual for the prosecution community in the state of Georgia. 

Cook is the author of several other books including Adjudicative Criminal Procedure – What Matters and Why? (Aspen Publishing, 2017) (co-authored) and an autobiographical account of his trial experiences titled, A Prosecutor's Story (BookBaby, 2020).

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