Latest Case: Price v. Texas (Constitutional Law)

My Favorite Three from RBG

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR

Illinois law dean and professor Vikram David Amar reflects on three writings by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that he finds himself most drawn to. Amar describes these writings as addressing ideas central to our form of democratic government, namely popular sovereignty, equal voting access, and judicial deference to Congress on policies involving the entire nation.

Read More

Republicans’ Blind Support for Trump Is NOT About Judges and Tax Cuts but About Bigotry and Raw Power

NEIL H. BUCHANAN

UF Levin College of Law professor and economist Neil H. Buchanan examines the flaws in the theory that Republicans’ support for Trump is about judges and tax cuts. Rather, Buchanan argues, they support his bigotry and his efforts to dismantle our democracy.

Read More

Price v. Texas

Docket: PD-0722-19

Opinion Date: September 23, 2020

Judge: Yeary

Areas of Law: Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

Police approached Appellant Braden Price at the San Antonio airport, detained him on suspicion of trafficking in drugs, and handcuffed him behind his back. They then transported both him and his rolling suitcases to a “secure office” inside the airport. After reading Appellant his rights, police searched the suitcases and discovered marijuana. Appellant argued on appeal that the trial court should have granted his motion to suppress the marijuana because the officers’ search of the suitcases was impermissible under the Fourth Amendment. The court of appeals reversed, holding that the warrantless search was not justified as a search incident to arrest. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State's petition for discretionary review of its claim the appellate court erred when it concluded the search was not valid as a search incident to arrest, because categorically, luggage is never “property immediately associated with the arrestee.” The Court held that an arrestee was in actual possession of a receptacle at the time of, or reasonably contemporaneously to, his custodial arrest, and that receptacle must inevitably accompany him into custody, a warrantless search of that receptacle at or near the time of the arrest was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment as a search incident to the arrestee’s person. "Such a search requires no greater justification than the fact of the lawful arrest itself. Application of this principle does not turn on the specific nature or character of the receptacle, as the court of appeals believed, but merely on whether it was in the arrestee’s possession at the time of arrest, and whether it would inevitably accompany him into custody." Accordingly, judgment was reversed.