Constitutional Law
What this domain tests
This domain tests the constitutional limits on police power: the Fourth Amendment and Illinois Article I, Section 6 (seizures and searches), the Fifth Amendment and Section 10 (self-incrimination, due process), the Sixth Amendment (counsel, confrontation, jury trial), the Eighth Amendment (punishment), and the Fourteenth Amendment (incorporation, equal protection).
Core rules
- State action is required. Constitutional claims run against government actors, not private citizens, unless the private party acts as an agent of police.
- Miranda warnings are required before custodial interrogation by officers who know or reasonably should know they are dealing with a suspect. Custody means formal arrest or restraint to a degree associated with formal arrest. Interrogation includes express questioning and words or actions reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response.
- The public safety exception (New York v. Quarles) allows limited questioning about an immediate threat before warnings.
- The Sixth Amendment right to counsel attaches at the initiation of formal adversarial proceedings and is offense-specific. The Fifth Amendment right to counsel attaches when invoked during custody.
- Due process requires disclosure of exculpatory evidence (Brady) and forbids suggestive identification procedures that create a substantial likelihood of misidentification.
- Remedies for violations are suppression of evidence and statements, and civil liability under 42 U.S.C. 1983.
Worked example
An officer stops a driver for a burned-out headlight and asks for license and insurance. The driver is not in custody, so Miranda does not apply and no warnings are needed. If the officer handcuffs the driver, places him in the squad, and questions him about a nearby shooting for twenty minutes, custody exists and unwarned answers are presumptively inadmissible.
Traps
Believing Miranda applies to all questioning. Forgetting the public safety exception. Treating the Sixth Amendment right as covering all offenses rather than the charged offense. Assuming a volunteered statement is interrogation - it is not.