Questions and Answers of Introductory Sociology

Identify and briefly describe the two types of administrative remedies against police misconduct.
Identify and explain the reasons for the hurdles plaintiffs have to overcome when they sue officers and the governments in charge of them.
Can you sue a judge for damages? A prosecutor? Explain.
Identify and explain the three elements in the state-created-danger exception to the no-affirmative-duty-to-protect rule.
According to the U.S. Supreme Court, what (if any) constitutional duty do law enforcement officers have to protect private individuals from each other?
According to the U.S. Supreme Court in Monell v. New York City Department of Social Services, what two elements do plaintiffs have to prove to succeed in suing local government units?
Identify the elements in the balancing test used to decide whether to grant the defense of vicarious official immunity.
Describe the extent and limits of state tort actions against state and local governments.
Identify and describe two limits the U.S. Supreme Court placed on § 1983 actions against state and local officers.
Identify two elements plaintiffs in § 1983 actions against state and local law enforcement officers have to prove.
Describe the balance that has to be struck in state cases against state officers.
Identify and describe the differences between two kinds of state civil lawsuits against individual state officers.
What specific remedy does the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) provide plaintiffs, and why is it attractive to plaintiffs?
Identify the two elements of the qualified immunity defense, and explain why the test is so easy for officers to pass.
Summarize the Bivens v. Six Unnamed FBI Agents case, and explain its significance.
How likely is it that police officers will be charged and convicted of criminal conduct?Why?
According to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, what’s the core idea behind the objective test of entrapment?
Identify the two kinds of circumstances the government can use to prove defendants’predisposition to commit crimes. Give an example of each.
Describe how the U.S. Supreme Court applied the subjective case to the facts of Sherman v. U.S.
What’s the crucial question in the subjective test of entrapment?
Identify two elements in the subjective test of entrapment.
Identify the difference between the subjective and the objective tests of entrapment.
Identify four examples of active law enforcement encouragement.
Describe and explain the U.S. Supreme Court’s attitude toward the defense of entrapment throughout most of our history.
According to Professor Christopher Slobogin, why is no one likely to win the empirical debate over the accuracy of the assumptions you identified in question 11?
Identify the assumptions of the Warren and Rehnquist Courts regarding the exclusionary rule.
State the narrow scope of the reasonable good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule.
Identify the rationale for the attenuation, independent source, and inevitable discovery exceptions to the exclusionary rule.
List and explain five exceptions to the exclusionary rule.
Summarize U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis’s arguments in favor of the exclusionary rule.
Explain the balancing test the U.S. Supreme Court adopted to apply the deterrence justification.
Identify and explain the rationales behind the three justifications for the exclusionary rule. Which justification does the U.S. Supreme Court use today?
Briefly trace the history of the exclusionary rule through the leading U.S. Supreme Court cases that created and expanded it.
Is there a constitutional right to the exclusionary rule and the defense of entrapment?Explain your answer.
Identify two types of remedies against government wrongdoing and the differences between them, and give examples of each.
Summarize the importance jurors, lawyers, and judges attach to scientific evidence as proof of guilt.
Identify and compare the three legal tests for admitting DNA evidence in court.
List the six recommendations made by the Wisconsin legislature and law enforcement to improve eyewitness identification.
List four recommendations made by legal commentators to improve eyewitness identification reliability.
Why are photo identifications the most unreliable eyewitness identification procedure?
Identify, describe, and give an example of the five circumstances in the totality-ofcircumstances due process test you identified in question 15.
Identify the two prongs in the totality-of-circumstances due process test of admissibility of eyewitness identification created by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Describe and give an example of how the power of suggestion works in administering lineups.
Summarize what empirical research has shown about the reliability of lineups.
Identify three constitutional provisions identification procedures can violate and when in the criminal process they kick in.
Identify and describe three ways to reduce the inaccuracy of eyewitness identification by police procedures and legal rules.
Explain why the procedures used to identify strangers add to the problem of misidentification.
When is the effect of suggestion most powerful and threatening? Why?
Describe how witnesses’ descriptions of criminal events change over time.
Describe how suggestion works based on Elizabeth Loftus’s research.
Describe how memory affects the accuracy of eyewitness identification.
Identify five circumstances that affect the accuracy of identifying strangers.
Identify and define three mental processes that account for mistakes in identifying strangers.
Why is identification of strangers risky in criminal cases?
List some circumstances that courts have determined don’t cause suspects to confess.
List some circumstances courts consider in determining whether coercive action caused people to confess.
Identify the two elements of involuntary confessions.
List some circumstances relevant to showing a knowing wavier.
Identify the two elements of a valid wavier of the rights to counsel and to remain silent.
Identify and describe the Sixth Amendment test used to determine when the right to counsel kicks in.
Identify and describe the Fifth Amendment test used to determine interrogation.
State and summarize the reason for the public safety exception to the Miranda warnings.
Identify three types of detentions that aren’t custodial.
Identify five circumstances to determine custody.
State the two circumstances that exist before officers have to give the Miranda warnings.
Miranda v. Arizona established a “bright-line” rule regarding warnings to suspects.State and give the reasons for the rule.
Identify three factors behind the decision in Miranda v. Arizona.
Describe the voluntariness test of self-incrimination.
Can physical evidence serve as a witness against a suspect? Explain.
What three elements have to be satisfied for defendants to claim that their Fifth Amendment rights were violated?
When does the right to counsel kick in during interrogations?
What is the significance of Townsend v. Sain?
What is the significance of Rogers v. Richmond?
What is the basic idea behind the due process approach to confessions?
Identify and state the contents of the three provisions in the U.S. Constitution that limit police interrogation and confessions.
What is the meaning and significance of the statement, “Pressure yes; coercion no”?
List arguments both in favor of and against videotaping interrogations.
List four findings of Richard Leo’s research on police interrogation, and describe what his findings are based on.
Identify three reasons why Fred Inbau supported interrogations.
Identify when the accusatory stage of the criminal process triggers the rights afforded to suspects.
Identify four different settings where defendants confess their guilt or make incriminating statements.
Describe the ambivalence surrounding confessions in social and legal history.
In the case of a prenatal crack epidemic, what objective basis is required to justify testing hospital patients, and why is it required?
When are drug-testing policies for public employees justifiable?
According to State v. Ellis, why are searches of college students’ dorm rooms reasonable only if backed up by warrants and probable cause?
How does the setting of searches of college students differ from the setting of searches of high-school students?
Summarize the facts and the majority and dissenting opinions in State v. Ellis.
Summarize the facts and the majority and dissenting opinions in Vernonia School District v. Acton.
Identify the special need and privacy balanced in searches of high-school students.
Identify the special need and the expectation of privacy balanced in searches of highschool students as outlined by the U.S. Supreme Court in New Jersey v. T. L. O.
Why are employee drug tests reasonable without warrants or probable cause?
Why do parolees have even more diminished rights against searches and seizures than probationers?
What is the significance of U.S. v. Knights in dealing with searches and seizures of probationers?
Identify two reasons why courts say that probationers and parolees have diminished Fourth Amendment rights.
Explain the significance of testing and storing the DNA of incarcerated felons.
What, if any significance, does harassment have on prison shakedowns?
Summarize the facts and explain the significance of the Supreme Court’s holding in Hudson v. Palmer. Summarize the dissent’s argument in the case.
When are strip and body-cavity searches of prisoners reasonable? Explain.
Identify the special need and the objective basis for searches of prisoners.
Identify the balance in custody-related searches for prisoners, probationers, and parolees.

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