Plain View / Open Fields Case Study

For the plain view doctrine to exist within this scenario and for the evidence obtained to be admissible in court under the plain view doctrine, the Court states three elements must exist: First, an awareness of the items through the use of site only must be established. In both situations, the officers had visibly seen the five bags filled with a white powdered substance on a table in the back yard where a fight was occurring and marijuana cigarettes that had fallen out of the stolen pocketbook. Furthermore, the sense of smell, hearing, and touch was not used to establish the evidence, only the sense of site as required.

The second element that must exist is the officers must be able to prove they had a legal right to be in the place in which the items were discovered. The officers did, in fact have a legal right to be in both places. The officers were out on patrol at the present time and were on hot pursuit chasing an individual that had stolen a pocketbook. While on hot pursuit the suspect dropped the pocketbook in a back alley where the officers then encountered a fight that was taking place in a residence back yard. With this being said the officers initially had a legal right to be in the alley due to a hot pursuit chase. Furthermore, the officers were in a public common and had a legal right-obligation to enter the backyard of the residence premises in order to break up the fight to prevent injury or death and an assault and battery misdemeanor was occurring in the police officers presence and constitutes the officers ability to conduct an arrest.

With the third element, the officer must immediately recognize the apparent item as an item that constitutes a seizure. In the backyard where the fight occurred, one of the officers was in the process of contacting a parent in the house in regard to the fight. While doing so the officer immediately observed five baggies filled with a white powdery substance on a table. Due to the officers' experience and knowledge, the officer established probable cause which is not needed under a plain view doctrine, but further allowed the officer to seize the items. While heading back to the alley to retrieve the stolen pocketbook, items that were in the pocketbook had spilled out onto the ground. The officer immediately noticed marijuana cigarettes which further supported the plain view doctrine.

In both situations exigent circumstances existed allowing the officers to seize the items, the officers had no previous knowledge that the evidence obtained was going to be present and the discovery of the drugs on the table and the marijuana cigarettes were completely inadvertently accidental. Furthermore, the officers were not searching for any illegal substances, but rather came across the substances while doing their job.

I do not believe the "open fields" doctrine is applicable to this particular fact pattern but rather the plain view doctrine. There are two main issues that exist within the "open fields" doctrine though that could cause a potential problem for the courts when trying to make a determination when considering if the evidence obtained in the backyard scenario should be admissible in court. The Fourth Amendment does not protect items discovered in open fields or in plain view, it only protects against unreasonable search and seizures of one's home, papers, and effects. For open field doctrine to exist, evidence cannot be obtained without a warrant or probable cause in one's home, the Curtilage surrounding the immediate area of one's home, residential yards, fenced in areas, certain areas of an apartment building that are not used on a regular basis by other renters-individuals, barns and other building, and garages (Justia.com, 1990).

In the situation where the officer had discovered the five bags filled with a white powdery substance located in the backyard on a table, the issue at hand is the yard does, in fact, have a fence surrounding the property to keep others out, which could be looked upon as an expectation of the renters or owners privacy. The second issue is where the bags were discovered. The bags were discovered within the Curtilage of the house, which could potentially be arguable in court to remove the plain view doctrine. What helped the determination of why I believe the Court would not agree to accept the "open fields" doctrine opposed to the plain view doctrine was due to one Supreme Court case that held that the three different type fences officers were forced to cross in order to view the contents of the inside of a barn did not constitute the protection of the Fourth Amendment. The second reason of mine was due to exigent circumstances existing where the drugs could have been removed by a third party and the third reason was though the drugs in the backyard were in-deed found in the Curtilage, the officers had a legal right to be there as a result of a criminal offense occurring that needed the officers immediate assistance.

References

Justia. (1990). U.S. Supreme Court: Horton v. California, 1990. Retrieved July 5, 2009, from http://supreme.justia.com/us/496/128/