Constitutional Law IP
You are a training officer with your local law enforcement agency. You are responsible for developing training materials and training opportunities for the officers in your agency.
Your superior has assigned you an unusual task in anticipation of an in-house training and development program. This task is focused on civil rights, but you have been asked to play devil’s advocate for a day. Your task is to present a memo that will be distributed to everyone at the training as required reading.
Your memo will be on the topic of how the criminal justice system might look and function if civil rights and civil liberties were not valued.
Your answer to the following question can assist you in developing your memo:
If the criminal justice system employed a true public-order approach to fighting crime, what would agencies do differently right now?
Assignment Guidelines
Research major Supreme Court cases that have impacted criminal justice agency policy decisions. For example, Miranda v. Arizona and its progeny changed custodial interrogations, and Terry v. Ohio changed stop-and-frisk situations.
Address the following in 750–1,000 words:
What landmark U.S. Supreme Court case have you chosen, and what criminal justice policy changed as a result of that case? Explain.
This is the starting point for this assignment. Once you understand how that case changed policy, then you can start to work on identifying how the criminal justice system might change its function if the rule of law established in that case was no longer a requirement.
Do the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court impact criminal justice policy decisions? Why or why not? Explain in detail.
How might the affected criminal justice agencies perform differently if the rule of law in your chosen U.S. Supreme Court case was no longer a requirement? Explain in detail.
Be sure to reference all sources using APA format.
Solution Preview
MEMO
TO: Your Superior
From: Student’s Name
Subject: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
One of the cases which made a significant impact on the criminal justice system would have to be Terry v. Ohio. The case, which was decided back in 1968 led to a change which was experienced when it came to the stop-and-frisk program which was part of the criminal justice policy. The facts of the case involved Terry, as well as two other men, who were not only stopped by an officer but were also frisked.
(1,107 words)