CRIMINAL PROCEDURE I
Professor Calhoun
FINAL - Spring 1999

 

Part III ( 40 points)

The following essay should be answered in blue books or typed.

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Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were suspected of robbing a bank in San Francisco. As part of the robbery investigation, Police Officer Jones went to the beauty shop where Parker worked as a manicurist. Parker was not there so Jones asked her employer, Miss Adele, for permission to look around Parker's workstation. Ms. Adele said it was o.k. to look around. While looking through a wastebasket Parker shared with the other manicurist in the shop, Jones found discarded money wrappers from the Wells Fargo Bank. These were later identified as being similar to money wrappers that were taken (with the cash) in the recent robbery and they had Parker's and Barrow's fingerprints on them.

Based on this information Jones and her partner, Smith set up surveillance across the street from a car they recognized to be Barrow's. When they saw Parker and Barrow start to get into the car they exited their patrol car and came over and arrested Parker and Barrow for bank robbery. Parker immediately blurted out "It was Clyde who made me do it. I didn't want to rob them banks." Jones answered, "Don't worry, ma'am. We have reason to believe Clyde is the heavy and that he is going to do the big time on this." Clyde immediately responded by saying, "Wait a minute. You're going to listen to her? This was all her idea." Parker and Barrow were handcuffed and placed in the back of the patrol car. Jones and Smith returned to Barrow's car and searched it. On the back seat they saw a woman's purse. They opened it and found a bag containing four ounces of marijuana.

When Parker and Barrow were taken downtown to the police station, Barrow was placed in a cell with Bruno Exterminatore, a paid undercover police informant. Exterminatore kept asking Barrow what he was in for and Barrow kept saying "I don't know. I didn't do anything." Exterminatore said at one point, "Cut the crap. You can play whatever games you want with the cops but if you try that goody two-shoes crap with me you'll be in big trouble after the lights go out." Barrow immediately disclosed to Exterminatore that he and Parker had robbed a Wells Fargo Bank.

The next day Parker and Barrow were charged with bank robbery and possession of marijuana.

Prior to trial both Parker and Barrow move to suppress all evidence taken in violation of their constitutional rights. Discuss which, if any of the evidence is suppressible and why.