Criminal Procedure Law Coursework Research Paper Essay

Criminal Procedure
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Criminal Procedure
May law enforcement officers take an item off the shelf in an antique store and examine it to determine whether it is stolen. May officers do the same thing in a private home into which they have been invited by a person who does not know they are law enforcement officers. The explanation for these two scenarios is that stores are usually open to public access. Therefore, law enforcement officers, like other potential clients, are free to inspect items that are displayed on the shelf of a publicly accessible property (Roberts, 1981). Thus, in the case of the antique store, law enforcement officers would be sanctioned to conduct an inspection on any item to establish whether or not it was stolen.
On the contrary, officers are not authorized to inspect a private home. Although the owner of the cottage invited the officers, the property they were investigating was private since everything within that homestead, and the home at large was privately owned and not accessible ...