Constitutional, Legal and Ethical Issues in Criminal Justice Police abuse remains one of the most serious and divisive human rights violations in the United States. The excessive use of force by police officers, including unjustified shootings, severe beatings, fatal chokings, and rough treatment, persists because overwhelming barriers to accountability make it possible for officers who commit human rights violations to escape due punishment and often to repeat their offenses. Police or

Moreover, the risks posed by felons with known propensities (or stated intentions) to respond violently to law enforcement apprehension efforts are usually subject to judicially approved no-knock arrest warrants; therefore, they can be excepted from this particular element of analysis. However, a subject who is forewarned of officers' intention to breach his home's entrance by the amount of time required by knock and announce standards presents the worst case scenario

Stop and Frisk In theory, a stop and frisk is "A brief, non-intrusive, police stop of a suspect." (Legal Information Institute, N.p.) These detentions can comply with Fourth Amendment standards under very specific circumstances. "The Fourth Amendment requires that the police have a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed before stopping a suspect. If the police reasonably suspect the person is armed

Equal Protection Clause of 14th Amendment The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment extended to protections of the Bill of Rights to all Americans, including pregnant women. Therefore, it is fundamentally unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to criminalize pregnant women who take illegal drugs for fetal abuse or neglect without applying the same conditions on pregnant women who endanger their unborn child by drinking alcohol,

During the 1960's and 1970's, violent contact with the police, resulting in force occurred during anti-war, labor and civil rights demonstrations, during a politically tumultuous time. It is safe to conclude that excessive force was used during these clashes. Deaths and injuries were the results of political clashes at the Republican Convention in Chicago, during campus riots held at several universities, during political demonstrations held in public places and in

The U.S., however, is the only industrial democracy, common law or otherwise, in which courts must throw out tainted evidence in criminal trials. The U.S. Supreme Court decisions establishing and expanding on this principle have collectively come to be known as the "exclusionary rule." Although the rule had its origins in arguments about the morality of obtaining a conviction while relying on improperly obtained evidence, its primary modern justification