Excited Utterances and Warrantless Searches—Davis and Samson

The United States Supreme Court has released two decisions this morning:
Davis v. Washington (05-5224) and Samson v. California (04-9728). We previewed Davis last March. The full text of the decisions in these cases has not yet been released publicly.^[1]

Davis v. Washington
In Davis, the Court makes an interesting distinction between the evidentiary status of victim statements made during a 911 call and victim statements made to police at the scene of alleged crime.^[2]

In the first instance, the Court held that the statements made to 911 operators by an alleged crime victim did not qualify as testimonial and therefore may be admitted without violating a defendant’s 6th Amendment confrontation rights.^[3]

In the second instance, the Court held that statements made by alleged victim to police officers at the scene are testimonial and therefore must be excluded unless the declarant testifies at trial.^[4] The decision, when it is released later today, should contain some interesting thoughts on the Confrontation Clause.

Samson v. California
Samson seems to be following the current Court’s trend toward limiting individual civil rights in situations involving police investigations into possible criminal acts.

The Court held that police may conduct a warrantless search of an individual who is on parole, without violating that person’s 4th Amendment rights.^[5]

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[1] Decisions noted in today's post on Scotusblog.com.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Id.