Constitutional Law and Criminal Procedure
Core concepts
Policing is governed by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments and by the Connecticut Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Arrests and full searches require probable cause; brief investigative stops require reasonable suspicion. Know the warrant requirement and its exceptions: consent, exigent circumstances, automobile, plain view, search incident to arrest, inventory, and Terry frisk. A frisk requires reasonable suspicion that a person is armed and dangerous, not merely that a stop occurred. The Fifth Amendment protects against compelled self-incrimination; Miranda warnings apply to custodial interrogation. Voluntariness matters even without custody. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches at formal proceedings, but Connecticut practice may provide counsel earlier. Due process requires disclosure of exculpatory evidence and fundamentally fair procedures.
Traps
Questions often confuse a stop with an arrest, or assume consent is unlimited. Consent must be voluntary and can be withdrawn; scope matters. A vehicle search incident to arrest is limited to areas within the arrestee's reach or where evidence of the offense may be found. Inventory searches must follow standardized policy. Do not assume a traffic stop is automatically a search. Do not assume silence equals guilt or that Miranda is required for every question.
Worked example
An officer arrests a driver for a traffic warrant and then searches the trunk for evidence. That search exceeds the search-incident-to-arrest exception unless the trunk is within reach or the offense provides a basis to search there. Rule of thumb: identify the seizure first, then the justification, then the scope. If the scope exceeds the justification, the evidence may be suppressed.