Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Midterm Review
• Search and Seizure Flow Chart
• Hypothetical Fact Pattern Exercise
• Practice questions
• Questions and Answers
• Power point slides available at:
• http://jyates.myweb.uga.edu/
Basic Fourth Amendment Analysis
Was
warrant Search
proper and Valid Search
executed Valid
correctly?
One method of answering
hypothetical fact pattern questions
• I.R.A.C. Method
– Issue
– Rule
– Application
– Conclusion
• All elements outlined above are important, but,
of course, the “Application” element is most
important
• This could be used for either essay writing
organization or to clarify your thinking in a
multiple choice question context
PRACTICE MIDTERM EXAMINATION - FACT PATTERN TYPE QUESTION
The state of New York passed a law prohibiting the use, possession, or sale of tea
leaves and tea products. This includes iced tea, hot tea, or any other manner that tea might be
ingested or sold. The possession, use, or sale of tea is a felony punishable for up to five years
in prison. Unfortunately, the use of tea persists in the city of New York where tea abuse has
reached epidemic proportions. Jerry and his friend Elaine are quite fond of hot tea as is
Elaine’s new boyfriend Lloyd Braun. Jerry lives down the hall from “Cosmo” Kramer who
prefers iced tea. Jerry and Elaine’s friend George dislikes tea but, likes to hang out with tea
users because he wants to be “hip”. The new police chief in town, Newman (the former
mailman), has vowed to rid the city of this “vile weed”.
One day Kramer is sipping iced tea in his apartment and there is a knock on his
door. Kramer answers the door to find Newman, his former friend and now tea czar.
Newman asks, “Not hiding anything in here are we Kramer? I know you used to have a
certain fascination with ... iced tea!” Newman stares the frightened Kramer in the face and
asks, “mind if I have a look around?” Kramer, not being very well versed in his constitutional
rights, believes that he must let the forceful Newman in and replies, “yeah, sure whatever you
want, big officer man.” Newman then spies a tall cool glass of iced tea on Kramer’s coffee
table. He confiscates the evidence and places Kramer under arrest for possession of tea.
-- So, is the evidence against Lloyd Braun excludable? What about the evidence against Elaine? If so,
on what grounds? If not, then why not?
Jerry now has two friends under arrest for possession of tea. He meets
George at Monk’s cafe for lunch to talk about the arrests. George starts
discussing how they shouldn’t have gotten mixed up with Lloyd Braun and that
Jerry’s use of tea was probably a bad idea. Jerry replies, “you’re crazy, I love tea.
I like it hot, iced ... I even like to put it in cakes sometimes.” George somberly
looks at Jerry and says “I’m sorry my friend, but I had to do it”. Whereupon
Newman shows up and exposes the tape recorder under George’s jacket. “Yes!”
exclaims Newman. “I had to get George a date with Marisa Tomei to do this, but
it was worth it!” Jerry’s taped statements are used against him at trial and are the
basis of a subsequent search warrant for his apartment. The search turns up tea
leaves.
-- So, is the “confession” admissible at trial? Are the tea leaves from the
subsequent search of the apartment admissible? Why or why not?
Case based M/C Question