Law and Order is a popular TV show that is still shown in reruns, but the subject on the TV show usually has little to do with law and order. McGarnickle, a beloved yet obscure bit character on The Simpsons, is a good example. This McGarnickle clip is based on this Dirty Harry clip. McGarnickle “busted up” furniture in a crack house and Harry was “busted up” over a defendant’s civil rights.

It’s hard to believe, but Dirty Harry, the often copied but never duplicated cop movie, is now more than fifty years old. Society has changed a lot over the past five decades, and the law has changed a lot as well. We’ll discuss those changes in detail below.

First, a bit of Dirty Harry background. During the movie, Callaghan stalks a fictional serial killer who calls himself Scorpio. This figure was based on the real-life Zodiac killer , who murdered at least five people in California in the late 1960s. This person was never caught.

At one point in the movie, Harry chases Scorpio to Scorpio’s apartment, to save a damsel in distress. The rifle Harry seized was inadmissible in 1971, but the law has changed so much since then, it might be admissible today.

Procedural criminal defenses, like search and seizure issues , are very time consuming. No one wants to go through Clarksville booking and sit in jail while attorneys trade jabs over legal minutiae. So, immediate jail release with Fizer Bonding Company in Robertson and Montgomery counties in Tennessee, unlocks procedural defenses. If defendants are still incarcerated, they understandably look for the quickest way out. The Montgomery County bail bonds agents at Fizer Bonding Company arrange for immediate release in most cases, so your lawyer has a full range of defensive options.

In the 1960s, criminal cases like Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) and Miranda v. Arizona (1966) reinterpreted the Fourth Amendment. Harry apparently let his subscription to the University of San Francisco Law Review expire, so he was unaware of these changes.

In Escobedo, the Justices ruled that criminal suspects had the right to counsel during police interrogations. Police arrested Danny Escobedo on suspicion of killing his brother-in-law. During questioning, Escobedo repeatedly asked for a lawyer, and officers always said no. Fourteen and a half hours after his arrest, Escobed confessed.

The Illinois Supreme Court upheld Escobedo’s conviction, but the Supreme Court reversed it in a 5-4 decision. Writing for the majority, Justice Arthur Goldberg held that “If a police investigation begins to focus on a particular suspect, his statements to the police are excluded if he has been refused counsel.”

As a footnote, Escobedo was a bad guy. After this case, he was convicted of twelve other felonies, including drug trafficking, indecency with a child, and attempted murder.

The facts in Miranda were similar. But Ernesto Miranda , who was a suspect in a kidnapping and rape, only lasted two hours before he cracked. During this time, Miranda never asked for a lawyer and officers never informed him of his rights.

This time, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that “If the individual indicates in any manner, at any time prior to or during questioning, that he wishes to remain silent, the interrogation must cease … If the individual states that he wants an attorney, the interrogation must cease until an attorney is present. At that time, the individual must have an opportunity to confer with the attorney and to have him present during any subsequent questioning.”

Miranda was retried on the kidnapping charge in 1967 and convicted based on circumstantial evidence. He served five years of a 20 to 30-year sentence. Miranda was stabbed to death in a fight in 1976. His killer was never caught.

A fourth exception, the consent doctrine, might have applied in this movie. Technically, Scorpio “voluntarily” gave Harry the hunting rifle after the inspector “encouraged” him to cooperate. Since Harry clearly coerced this consent, we’ll focus on the other three instead.

In 1971, Harry illegally entered Scorpio’s apartment because Harry did not have a warrant. As a brief reminder, the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable warrantless searches and seizures. But in 2022, Harry’s entrance might have been reasonable and thus not subject to the warrant requirement.

In the decades between 1971 and 2022, courts carved out the hot pursuit exception to the warrant requirement. If officers are pursuing a fleeing suspect who seeks refuge in a private building, even a dwelling, they don’t need warrants to continue their pursuits.

This exception doesn’t come up too often in the real world, but these circumstances do arise occasionally. Perhaps the most famous one was John Wilkes Booth. When the army cornered Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, Booth holed up in a warehouse. He refused to come out, so authorities burned it down.

In contrast, this reasonableness exception comes up in many criminal cases. If authorities reasonably believe someone is in trouble, they may enter a building without a warrant and sweep through it to ensure everyone inside is okay.

Sometimes Clarksville inmates are arrested because officers responded to a disturbance call, they used the exigent circumstances exception to enter a house or other dwelling, and they found drugs or other contraband in the house.

Incidentally, the “reasonableness” exception in the Fourth Amendment is limited to recognized legal exceptions. Officers can’t make up new rules as they go.

These two exceptions allow police to enter buildings without warrants. But they don’t allow them to seize hunting rifles or anything else. For that, they must use the plain view exception.

As the name implies, officers may seize contraband they see in plain view, assuming they were lawfully in that place at that time.

Harry’s plain view seizure would probably be illegal today, just as it was in 1971. Without Scorpio’s “confession,” there’s no way Harry would have known this was the rifle as opposed to a rifle. The same issue comes up in other cases. For example, if Officer Jones sees a pistol handle sticking out from under a seat, the item might or might not be contraband. 

As you can tell from the above examples, best to get “your tail outta jail” as quickly as possible with the Clarksville bondsmen at the 40+ year old and family owned Fizer Bonding Company. For a small fee (10% of the bond) we give fast jail release 24/7 every day of the year. Call us today if you or a loved one is arrested. Fizer Bonding Company is a proud member of the Tennessee Association of Professional Bail Agents. More value added FREE information can be found in our online articles.

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