Explore the investigatory techniques utilized by law enforcement agencies in decisions involving the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments as they intersect with unlawful search and seizure, racial profiling, technology and privacy, police interrogation, and more.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
In the face of the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many other Black men and women at the hands of the police, it is a momentous time to talk about criminal procedure, fundamental constitutional rights, and basic respect for human life and dignity.
This course examines the relevant Supreme Court cases with the awareness that, as James Baldwin once wrote, “if one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected – those precisely who need the law’s protection most – and listens to their testimony.” As many have written and argued, the courts do not have a history of being agents of social justice and change, too often quite the opposite, but, as lawyers to be, it is important to arm yourselves with the law. And so, the course will analyze court cases to see what the current state of law purports to be.
Class readings and discussions will explore fundamental questions such as when police can stop you, question you, search you, enter your home, access your email, cell phone records, Internet searches, and utilize other forms of surreptitious surveillance like facial recognition software, license plate readers, drones, and body-worn cameras. Analysis of cases will focus on the balance between what is generically referred to as “public safety” and privacy or the right to be left alone, and the ways that the balancing is inextricably tied to race, class, ethnicity, language, and similar factors. Class will be taught in an online seminar format with a take-home mid-term and final exam.
What You’ll Learn:
- The standard for when police have probable cause to arrest
- The exclusionary rule, or suppression, remedy for illegal police conduct
- The contours of stop-and-frisk
- The practices of and limitations on police interrogations
- The eroding right to privacy in the digital age
Instructor
Steven Zeidman
Steven Zeidman is a graduate of Duke University School of Law and a former staff attorney and supervisor at the Legal Aid Society. He has taught at Fordham, Pace, and New York University School of Law and was awarded the NYU Alumni Association’s Great Teacher Award in 1997 and CUNY’s Outstanding Professor of the Year honor in 2011.
Professor Zeidman is a member of the New York State Appellate Division Indigent Defense Organization Oversight Committee and the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Section Council and serves on the Board of Directors of Prisoners’ Legal Services and the Parole Preparation Project. He was also a member of the Advisory Council created to implement the remedial order in the Floyd v. City of New York federal court stop-and-frisk litigation. Professor Zeidman has served on several statewide commissions, including the Commission on the Future of Indigent Defense Services and the Jury Project, and was a member of the Mayor’s Advisory Committee for the Judiciary in the Bloomberg and Giuliani administrations.
Credits
Cost
NY Residents
Out of State Residents