Week 3 Discussion 1: Reasonable Suspicion and Probable Cause
Week 3 - Discussion 1
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Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your responses. Refer to the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric under the Settings icon above for guidance on how your discussion will be evaluated.
Reasonable Suspicion and Probable Cause
Knowing the distinctions between reasonable suspicion and probable cause are essential, foundational aspects of criminal justice, just as mens rea and actus reus were in your studies last week. Reasonable suspicion is an objective belief by an officer that an investigation needs to be conducted into a potential crime. Probable cause is the standard required for arrest. Keep these distinctions clear in this week's presentations and in your criminal justice career. Support your claims with examples from the required materials and/or other scholarly resources, and properly cite any references. Your initial post must be at least 300 words in length.
Two commonly confused concepts in criminal law are reasonable suspicion and probable cause. In your post,
Define and evaluate both of these significant legal terms, and utilize pertinent U.S. Supreme Court opinions to justify your answers.
Address what happens in court to a criminal case when an officer does not possess reasonable suspicion or probable cause.
Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your classmates' posts by Day 7. Examine why there are differing standards for a reasonable suspicion to stop and for probable cause. How do these legal terms relate to peoples' constitutional protections?
Reasonable Suspicion And Probable Cause
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Reasonable Suspicion and Probable cause
The two common concepts used in criminal law are reasonable suspicion and probable cause, knowing the distinctions between concepts is important. Probable cause can be defined as a process where the police officer has sufficient facts to justify an occurrence of a crime (Miller & Wright, 2013). In some circumstances, the officer can have only reasonable suspicion to conduct a search (Miller & Wright, 2013).
Reasonable suspicion means having sufficient knowledge to believe that criminal activity has taken place. Having a reasonable suspicion means having a level of knowledge, which is less than a problem cause (Miller & Wright, 2013). For an officer to have a probable cause or reasonable suspicion, he needs to present facts stating his reason for the intrusion. Any item related to the criminal activity found during search needs to be seized by the office...