PSC 321—Criminal Process I: The Investigation

This is a constitutional law course designed to explore the constraints on state and federal law enforcement officers as they pursue criminal investigations. Though emphasizing the Fourth Amendment, including the modern issues of GPS, smart phone and DNA technology, the course also reviews the impact of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments in terms of the right to counsel during the investigatory process. The course makes a practical assessment of how lower courts, the police and others in law enforcement actually use the criminal procedure rules. Areas to be covered include (but are not limited to): searches and seizures of persons and property, stop and frisk, arrest, the exclusionary rule, roadblocks, third party searches, confessions, wiretapping, police interrogations and videotaping. We will emphasize the role of the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, in regulating criminal procedures. PLEASE NOTE that this course may be taken independently of Criminal Procedure II: Bail to Jail; neither course is a prerequisite for the other one.