Constitutional Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Constitutional Law - Essay Example In this case, The Supreme court ruled that the search was constitutional since the object of the search was the probable existence of contraband in the vehicle. The major dissenting argument to this case came from the Robbins v. California (453 U.S. 420) case since an earlier court had ruled that searching contents of a bag within a vehicle was unconstitutional. Moreover, another judge argued that probable cause should not be determined by the police officer searching the vehicle but by an impartial judge or magistrate (Gardner, 2009). The judge cited the facts as seen in the Johnson v. United States, Giordenello v. United States and Shadwick v. City of Tampa 407 U.S. 345 cases. The US v Ross case is different from the California v Acevedo case of 1991 since in this case the police suspected that Acevedo was carrying a bag that contained Marijuana out of an apartment. In court, the defendant’s lawyers argued that the automobile exception did not apply to the contents of the bag and wanted the evidence expunged from the case. Justice Harry Blackmun ruled that the Marijuana could be adduced as evidence in the case since the police had probable cause to suspect the bag contained contraband. However, Justices White, Stevens, and Marshall dissented arguing that the police only suspected that the bag contained Marijuana and thus the object of the case was not met (Gardner, 2009). Their argument was based on the facts obtained from the Robbins v. California (453 U.S. 420) case where searching a bag was unconstitutional since it doe met the objective of the search which is probable cause of suspecting contraband in an automobile. The case of Wyoming v. Houghton was based on the search of a bag belonging to a passenger when a police officer stopped a vehicle driven by a drug user. In this case, the officer had the right to conduct a warrantless search based on the probable cause that the vehicle contained contraband. The court based in Wyoming