Open Fields Case Study

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Does the term "open fields" include any place that is public or private outside the curtilage, including forests, lakes, woods, city streets, and stadiums?

The term “open fields” does include any place that is public or private depends on the court interpretation of curtilage. The open fields are considered to be all the space not within the house or its curtilage. So if the forests, lakes, wood, and stadiums were immediately surrounding the house and enclosed by a fence they couldn’t be searched. However, in most situations that is not the case so the law enforcement officers would be able to apply the term open fields.

Explain how the concepts of open fields, curtilage, and reasonable expectation of privacy interrelate and their importance to the law of search and seizure.
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Moreover, curtilage relates to whether a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Specifically, if the person whose home is being searched as a garage attached to the home the term curtilage says that area can’t be searched because of a reasonable expectation of privacy. Open fields are important to the law of search and seizure because these areas are outside of the curtilage which persons don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy to that piece of land.

The dissent in California v. Hodari D. said that “a police officer may now fire his weapon at an innocent citizen and not implicate the Fourth Amendment — as long as he misses his target.” If a person throws away an item of criminal evidence after being illegally shot at by a police officer, is the item abandoned? What if the person throws the item away before being shot by the officer but after the officer has begun pursuing the suspect? Is the item abandoned in this situation?