What biblical principles should you be considering?
Part 1 Recognizing that a just criminal justice system has limited power and upholds the unalienable rights of the citizenry, consider the following scenario: You are a police officer and you are dispatched to a noise complaint at a residence in your jurisdiction. When you arrive at the residence, you hear loud music coming from the house that would constitute a violation of the noise ordinance in your community. You do not get an answer when you knock on the front door, so you walk around to the back of the house. When you get to the back porch, you see what you recognize to be several marijuana plants based on your training and experience. As you are examining the plants, the resident comes to the door and begins yelling at you to “get off of my property.”Note: for the purposes of this scenario, assume you are in a state where marijuana, medicinal or otherwise, is not legal.Based on this information, respond to the following questions:1.Can you seize the marijuana plants at that time? If yes, what is your legal justification for doing so? If no, what legally prohibits you from doing so? What biblical principles should you be considering?2.Based on your observation of the marijuana plants, do you need a search warrant to enter and search the house and the resident? If yes, what is the basis for this legal requirement? If no, what is the justification for this exception to the search warrant requirement? What biblical principles should you be considering?3.If you enter the residence and seize additional evidence inside and that search and seizure is later deemed illegal, would the additional evidence be admissible in court? Why or why not? What legal ruling(s) should you be considering?Requirements: In your essay, support your views with the required readings and study materials for this week, or other scholarly sources to support your statements. Four in-text citations are required for this assignment. Your paper must be formatted using 12 pt. Times New Roman font, with a 400-word minimum/425-word maximum double-spaced. (Do not include a Title page or Reference page).Part 2 This week you are presented with the body camera footage from two police officers in two unrelated incidents. Watch and listen to the officers in each incident. Be mindful of possible tactical skills and de-escalation skills that were employed or not exercised. Both incidents ended very differently. Body Camera Footage 1https://www.citizen-times.com/videos/news/local/2018/03/01/apd-chase-beat-man-they-say-jaywalked/110950514/Body Camera Footage 2http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/95090133-132.htmlBefore you write your essay, consider the following definitions and research findings:Police discretion is the flexibility police officers have in deciding between multiple courses of action to resolve a situation in the course of performing their duties. Research identifies several factors that determine whether law enforcement officers decide to enforce or not enforce laws: (1) the officer’s personal feelings regarding the severity of an offense and the potential risk it poses to the public; (2) the specifics of a situation; and (3) supervisor expectations of how officers will carry out their job functions (Ishoy, 2016). Other studies find that if an offender is a resident in the community where the offense occurs, an officer is 18% less likely to arrest the offender, especially if the offender is under the age of 21 or over the age of 51 (McCamman & Mowen, 2017).Use of force is the amount of police effort necessary to get a resistant suspect to comply. Below read the case Graham v. Connor (1989). The United States Supreme Court determined that the Fourth Amendment’s objective reasonableness standard should be the measure used in alleged excessive use of force cases.GRAHAM v. CONNOR, (1989) [http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/490/386.html]All claims that law enforcement officials have used excessive force – deadly or not – in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other “seizure” of a free citizen are properly analyzed under the Fourth Amendment’s “objective reasonableness” standard, rather than under a substantive due process standard.Points of interest from this case:a.If use of force is being questioned, it has to be based on a specific constitutional right infringement. You have to judge this claim of constitutional right infringement by the specific constitutional standard which governs that right. What specific constitutional right is being infringed upon?b.Claims that law enforcement officials have used excessive force in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other “seizure” of a free citizen are most properly characterized as invoking the protections of the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees citizens the right “to be secure in their persons . . . against unreasonable seizures,” and must be judged by reference to the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonableness” standard.c.The Fourth Amendment must be the guide to judge law enforcement excessive force incidents in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other “seizure” of a free citizen.De-escalation is when officers reduce the intensity of a potentially violent situation. It is the actions of the suspect (their level of cooperation or resistance) that impacts the discretionary powers of the police in deciding how to de-escalate the situation, if possible. Based on the above information, respond to the following questions:1.When comparing Body Camera Footage 1 to Body Camera Footage 2, how does the severity of the crime in each incident compare with the discretionary tactics employed by the officers involved? What biblical principles can you apply to the better approach?2.Discuss whether the suspect in each incident posed an immediate threat to the safety of the officers, himself, or the public. Consider if each suspect was actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight?3.When comparing the two incidents, why do you think one ended more appropriately than the other? 4.Why are non-coercive measures such as conversational requests and directives better than coercive measures?Requirements: In your essay, support your views with the required readings and study materials for this week, or other scholarly sources to support your statements. Four in-text citations are required for this assignment. Your paper must be formatted using 12 pt. Times New Roman font, with a 400-word minimum/425-word maximum double-spaced. (Do not include a Title page or Reference page).Submit this assignment by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Monday of Module/Week 4.Ishoy, G. A., & Dabney, D. A. (2017). Policing and the Focal Concerns Framework: Exploring How its Core Components Apply to the Discretionary Enforcement Decisions of Police Officers. Deviant Behavior, 1-18. doi:10.1080/01639625.2017.1335537McCamman, M. & Mowen, T. (2017). Does residency matter? Local residency as a predictor of arrest, Criminal Justice Studies, DOI: 10.1080/1478601X.2017.1420651
