Background
In Houghton, the Supreme Court was confronted with the question of whether the scope of a vehicle exception search included a passenger's purse. The car had been stopped by a police officer for a faulty brake light, and the driver was promptly observed to have a syringe in his shirt pocket. He admitted he used it to shoot up. A backup police car soon arrived, and the passengers were ordered out of the car. Ms. Houghton gave a false name. While looking through her purse, an officer found her driver's license and, thus, her real name. Continuing the search, the officer found a syringe with 60 ccs of methamphetamine. Looking at her arms, he saw fresh needle tracks. She was arrested.
The trial court denied her motion to suppress and she was convicted. On appeal, the Wyoming Supreme Court reversed because the officers lacked probable cause to search her purse simply based on the driver's possession of a syringe.
Read more about this topic: Wyoming V. Houghton
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)