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Issues In Colorado Search And Seizure Law For Police Officers - Part One

Jacobs v. Superior Court Analysis

Jacobs v. Superior Court (1973) Case Study

Concise Overview

Jacobs v. Superior Court addresses critical Fourth Amendment questions regarding police observations through an aperture in venetian blinds of a closed business establishment. The California Court of Appeal held that the officer's act of stepping into a planter area to peer through a gap in blinds constituted an unreasonable governmental intrusion into privacy, despite the relatively minor nature of the physical intrusion, because there was no emergency situation of overriding magnitude to justify the warrantless surveillance.