Section 2: Protections
This text contains the heavily abridged and edited versions of important court cases centered on the law of criminal procedure. This book is designed as a companion to my textbook Fundamentals of Procedural Law, but would make a good supplement to any course with an emphasis on constitutional rights and encounters with the criminal justice system. Note that this is a continuation of the cases presented in Fundamental Cases on the Fourth Amendment.
The rules of criminal procedure would mean nothing if agents of the criminal justice system could ignore them with impunity. It must be remembered that the Supreme Court is tasked with interpreting the Constitution, and it has also fallen on them to enforce those rules and prevent violations. That perspective can go a long way toward helping us understand doctrines like the exclusionary rule. In this section, we will consider how the Court has interpreted the law to protect the civil liberties of the People, and how the Congress has enacted laws to achieve similar purposes.
Last Modified: 08/21/2019