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police officers received an uncorroborated and anonymous tip that a farmer was growing marijuana on his property. the police went out to the farm, and finding no one home, went around the back, and followed a path that led out to the adjacent fields where cattle and horses were grazing. at the farthest edge of the property there were about two dozen marijuana plants. the plants were obscured by a high hedge fence, but the officers walked through the hedges and found the plants.

User Marvi
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The best answer is b. Despite feints and irrelevant facts , such as the police having no probable cause and looking into the windows of the farmer's house, the principal focus here is whether the invasion into the shrub -obscured garden was protected by the Fourth Amendment. The answer is no because the area is akin to an open field and society does not recognize privacy interests in such areas . Despite fences , no trespassing signs (or laws), despite the landowner's efforts or desires to keep others away or any other subjective expectation of privacy, areas away from the home and not within the curtilage (that is, structures or areas immediately adjacent to the house or appurtenant to the house; extensions of the house where private and intimate activities take place), are not protected by the Fourth Amendment. or actually comprise fields. Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170 (1984); United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294 (1987). Answer (a) is radically wrong . Although canine sniff cases such as United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696 (1983) seem to imply that there is no privacy interest in contraband, if contraband could be pursued by any means so long as it was, in fact, contraband, we would effectively repeal the Fourth Amendment. Police could do what they wished so long as, in the end, they were right about the illicit nature of what they seized. Answer (c) is not the best choice. While it is true that observations made from low flying aircraft, where the public would have access, are not searches , California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207 (1986), there is no assurance on these facts that the airspace above the plants , from which the relevant observations could be made, is in fact accessible to the public. See Florida v. Riley, 488 U.S. 445 (1989). Answer (b) is the better choice because the area is an open field and that is enough. Answer (d) erroneously portrays the facts . The police are acting on an uncorroborated, anonymous tip, which is not enough to provide reasonable suspicion . Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266 ( 2000) ( anonymous tip that a certain person with a plaid shirt and standing at a bus stop had a gun was held insufficient to create reasonable suspicion to stop or frisk). Answer (e ) fumbles because it bespeaks a much too expansive concept of the curtilage. home, the nature 252 of the activities conducted there, the sheltered or enclosed quality of the area, and the property owner's efforts to keep the area private. United States v. Dunn, supra. We are looking for areas that are effectively extensions of the house and thus within its umbrella of privacy.
User SAR
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