You are a police officer assigned to a task force that is investigating major drug trafficking operations in your jurisdiction. As part of the investigative process, a judge has issued a wiretap order for a suspect's phone. You are assigned the responsibility of monitoring phone conversations, and you overhear the suspect, as well as other individuals, who may or may not be involved in the drug ring. Before obtaining enough evidence to arrest and prosecute the suspect for drug trafficking, you hear evidence related to other types of criminal activity, including a murder plot. The officers continue to listen to the conversation about the murder plot and recover a firearm based on this conversation. The crime lab conducted ballistics testing and determined that the firearm was used in another murder case pending trial.

Assignment Guidelines

In a 3-5-page paper (not including the cover and reference pages), address the following:

• You want to act on the information about the murder plot, but your original wiretap order or warrant does not cover that. The Fourth Amendment requires that you have a wiretap order or warrant to listen but only for the evidence written in that wiretap order. Will the doctrine of the exclusionary rule apply?
• The Fifth Amendment gives people the right to not testify against themselves. This is the law against self-incrimination. If you act on the information about the murder plot, are you denying the offenders their Fifth Amendment rights because their words incriminated them?
• If you arrest the other individuals for the crimes not associated with the reasons for the wiretap, what happens to any future evidence that might be obtained from the wiretap? Why?
• Will the prosecutors handling the murder trial be able to use the recovered firearm as evidence in the trial? Why or why not? Will the fruit of the poisonous tree apply?

Resources should be cited in APA format.or APA citations.

Individual Project Rubric

The Individual Project (IP) Grading Rubric is a scoring tool that represents the performance expectations for the IP. This Individual Project Grading Rubric is divided into components that provide a clear description of what should be included within each component of the IP. It's the roadmap that can help you in the development of your IP.

Unit 2 Grading Rubric

	Total Points	Comments	Score
Apply your understanding of the Fourth Amendment and the exclusionary rule. Explain if the evidence obtained regarding the murder plot can be use in the future or will the exclusionary rule apply?	30
Apply your understanding of the Fifth Amendment and if the officer's actions violate the offender their right against self-incrimination.	30
Draw a conclusion about what happens to any future evidence that might be obtained from the wiretap, and justify your reasoning.	25
Explain what happens to the firearm that was obtained from the wiretap, and justify your reasoning. Consider the fruit of the poisonous tree.	30
Mechanics, grammar, APA, and professional language: The assignment contains accurate grammar, spelling, and punctuation with few or no errors. (APA formatting or the style specified in the assignment is required.)	10