Constitutional Law and Civil Rights
What this domain tests
Applying the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments, plus the Pennsylvania Constitution, to street-level decisions.
Core rules
- Fourth Amendment: searches and seizures must be reasonable; warrants are preferred. Terry permits a stop on reasonable suspicion and a frisk limited to weapons when the officer reasonably believes the person is armed.
- Automobile exception: with probable cause, Pennsylvania permits a warrantless vehicle search.
- Consent must be voluntary, and its scope is limited by what a reasonable person would understand. Consent can be withdrawn.
- Plain view requires lawful presence, lawful access, and immediately apparent incriminating character.
- Fifth Amendment: Miranda custody plus interrogation. Sixth Amendment: right to counsel attaches at critical stages after formal proceedings begin.
- Pennsylvania Constitution Art. I §8 is sometimes more protective than the federal Constitution, notably on warrant defects.
- Fourteenth Amendment equal protection and due process bar racially selective enforcement. 42 U.S.C. §1983 supplies the civil remedy.
Worked example
An officer stops a car for a broken taillight and asks for consent to search. The driver says go ahead but the search extends to a locked toolbox. The scope question is whether a reasonable person would have understood the consent to reach a locked container; absent clear authority, the officer should seek a warrant.
Traps
- Believing Miranda applies to every question asked on the street.
- Treating consent as unlimited or permanent.
- Relying on a good-faith exception that Pennsylvania may not recognize.
- Confusing probable cause, reasonable suspicion, and mere hunch.
- Recording a frisk as a search for evidence.