The law school course in criminal procedure is a limited version of the course on constitutional law. Many law school courses are wide ranging, in fact, the California Bar Exam tests the areas of the 4th, 5th, 6th and 14th amendments almost exclusively. This course is a fun subject course. It is the real cops and robbers tale. Almost all cases of note are U.S. Supreme Court cases, and every term there are new decisions on point. Cops call this subject matter "search and seizure".
Cops: It is amazing to me the lack of in service training for police officers in this area. In fact, this area of law, much more than any other, is used every day by cops. yet, police agencies and individual officers, in large part, provide very little in the way of updates.
The result is like sex.....I mean, cops learn about the search and seizure rules generally by talking with other cops, not from reading, classes, or any other source. That's how we all learned about sex, right...by getting misinformation from our friends. The higher the rank of the cop, the less likely they know anything much beyond their academy training. Yet, search and seizure law changes all the time.
As a result, police agencies sometimes turn in cases for prosecution with big problems. Police agencies need to institute ongoing, regular training for their officers with all attending, including up to the Chief
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I am very glad to see your Blog Tony. In just these two posts I have read, you have explained several interesting things about law enforcement for plain old citizens like me.
ReplyDeleteYour point of view from both the law Enforcement and Attorney side are interesting to read.
Thanks Steve...My goal is to write an easy to grasp overview of some basic constitutional law issues. Tony
ReplyDeleteP.S. If I start sounding too much like a law professor, let me know!