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Ferry Searches and Constitutional Rights: A Lesson Plan on Search and Seizure, Study Guides, Projects, Research of Commercial Law

Yale UniversityCommercial Law

A lesson plan designed to explore the legal requirements of searches conducted with and without a warrant, focusing on random searches of passenger vehicles preparing to board state ferries. It includes a case study set in the aftermath of 9/11, where motorists faced vehicle searches to board ferries. The lesson encourages students to debate the constitutionality of such searches, considering arguments for and against them, and examines the balance between security needs and individual privacy rights. The lesson also touches on the evolving security measures in the maritime industry and the implications for passenger screenings. This lesson is designed to promote critical thinking and deeper analysis of constitutional rights in the context of national security.

Typology: Study Guides, Projects, Research

2022/2023

Uploaded on 06/29/2025

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tatyiannna-menifee 🇺🇸

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Ferry Searches During Times of Crisis
Objectives
1. Students will identify legal requirements of searches conducted with and without a warrant.
2. Students will explore the legal standard for conducting random searches of passenger
vehicles preparing to board state ferries.
Time
One class period (approximately 50 minutes)
Materials
One copy of Handout 1 (Ferry Search Case Study) for each student
Note: This lesson assumes the teacher has already taught students the federal and state
constitutional sources of rights for search and seizure, identified the competing interests of privacy
and law enforcement, and reviewed the requirements for a search warrant.
Procedures
1. Begin the class by introducing yourself and telling students that today's class will deal
with search and seizure, specifically, the times that law enforcement is not required to get a
search warrant. You might also describe to students how your particular judicial
responsibilities relate to search and seizure: authorizing warrants, ruling on motions to
suppress, reviewing on appeal the admission of questioned evidence, etc.
2. Review briefly that both the Fourth Amendment and the Massachusetts State Constitution
require that warrants issue "upon probable cause." Ask students what that means.
3. Draw this line graph on the board to demonstrate probable cause.
Scale that measures how much information and what kind of information.
0% 4 4 4 4 50% + 95% 100%
No
Information
Hunch Suspicion Reasonable
Grounds
Probable
Cause
Preponderance
of Evidence
Beyond
Reasonable
Doubt
Certainty
4. Explain each entry on the chart.
No Information means the officer doesn't know anything about the location of evidence
linked to a crime.
Hunch means the officer has a gut feeling that something is not right, but the officer
cannot point to any specific facts; it is something like intuition.
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Ferry Searches During Times of Crisis

Objectives

  1. Students will identify legal requirements of searches conducted with and without a warrant.
  2. Students will explore the legal standard for conducting random searches of passenger vehicles preparing to board state ferries. Time One class period (approximately 50 minutes) Materials One copy of Handout 1 (Ferry Search Case Study) for each student Note: This lesson assumes the teacher has already taught students the federal and state constitutional sources of rights for search and seizure, identified the competing interests of privacy and law enforcement, and reviewed the requirements for a search warrant. Procedures
  3. Begin the class by introducing yourself and telling students that today's class will deal with search and seizure, specifically, the times that law enforcement is not required to get a search warrant. You might also describe to students how your particular judicial responsibilities relate to search and seizure: authorizing warrants, ruling on motions to suppress, reviewing on appeal the admission of questioned evidence, etc.
  4. Review briefly that both the Fourth Amendment and the Massachusetts State Constitution require that warrants issue "upon probable cause." Ask students what that means.
  5. Draw this line graph on the board to demonstrate probable cause. Scale that measures how much information and what kind of information. 0% 50% + 95% 100% No Information Hunch Suspicion Reasonable Grounds Probable Cause Preponderance of Evidence Beyond Reasonable Doubt Certainty
  6. Explain each entry on the chart. No Information means the officer doesn't know anything about the location of evidence linked to a crime. Hunch means the officer has a gut feeling that something is not right, but the officer cannot point to any specific facts; it is something like intuition.

Suspicion means the officer knows a minor fact or knows some larger fact from an unknown or unreliable source that suggests evidence may be located somewhere. For instance, an officer stops a person on the street to ask a question and the person quickly puts a hand in a pocket. Or, the officer may find a piece of paper on the street, which says that a particular person is selling drugs. Reasonable Grounds (also called Reasonable Belief and Reasonable Suspicion) means the officer knows several minor facts or a larger fact, or a large fact from a source of unknown reliability that points to a particular person engaging in some criminal activity. For example, a teacher standing outside a girls' lavatory smells cigarette smoke coming from the lavatory. The only two girls in the lavatory then leave together. The teacher has reasonable grounds, but not probable cause, to believe the girls have cigarettes in their purses (a violation of a school rule). Probable Cause means an officer has enough evidence to lead a reasonable person to believe that the items searched for are connected with criminal activity and will be found in the place to be searched. For example, an increase of 200 to 300 percent in power consumption within a building is not enough alone to establish probable cause to believe that a drug-growing operation is under way inside. However, such an increase, with other suspicious facts including an anonymous phone call claiming that people at a certain place are growing drugs, is enough for probable cause and a search warrant. Preponderance of the Evidence is the amount of evidence needed to be successful when suing in a civil case. It means that evidence must be "more likely than not," or more than 50 percent. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is the highest amount of proof; it is required to convict a person of a criminal charge. Certainty means that there is not even an unreasonable doubt as to its truth.

  1. Remind students of the rule that searches with a warrant are presumed to be reasonable (and therefore legal), while searches without a warrant are presumed to be unreasonable (and therefore illegal) unless they fall within a specific exception to the search warrant requirement. Tell students there are many exceptions to the search warrant requirement in Massachusetts. Brainstorm a quick list without expanding on the exceptions: incident to a lawful arrest, emergency searches, inadvertent plain view, consent searches, appropriate investigative stop and frisk for weapons, exigent circumstances with probable cause to search, incident to hot pursuit of fleeing felon, vehicles, proper inventory searches, and schools.
  2. Tell students that this class will focus on random searches of passenger vehicles seeking to board state ferries, which is not yet one of the exceptions. Clarify that students understand that random means that there was no information known to the officer prior to the search that illegal items might be found.

However, on July 1, 2003, the Homeland Security Department announced new security rules that affect the whole maritime industry, including 10,000 ships and 5,000 coastal facilities. U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and others have said America's ports are more vulnerable to terrorist attacks than any other part of the transportation industry. The new rules don't mandate car and passenger screening on ferries, but they do require that ferry operators come up with a new, tighter security plan that could include such screenings. Washington State Ferries must come up with a plan by the end of the 2003 and implement it by July 2004. Washington State Ferries doesn't know yet how they will spend the $9. million grant from the Homeland Security Department. The possibilities include bomb- sniffing dogs, X-ray machines, security personnel to perform searches, sentries, reinforced doors to wheelhouses and engine rooms, and barricades separating passengers and non- passengers at the terminals. In October 2003, the Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced rules that may end up returning to random searches of vehicles boarding state ferries. These rules set out a 3-tiered security level, similar to the color-coded security levels at airports. Even under the lowest security level for ports, all ship and ferry passengers must be screened, their bags X- rayed and their vehicles searched. The state is still preparing its plan.

  1. Review the standard for random ferry searches (no information) and compare it to random searches at the airports (no information). Should the fact that random airline searches are permitted justify random vehicle searches of boarding ferry passengers?
  2. Conclude with a comment on the tension between efficient police work and privacy of the individual. The teacher may follow up on this lesson by teaching additional exceptions to the search warrant requirement from the Washington Supplement to Street Law.

HANDOUT 1

Ferry Searches During Times of Crisis Case Study The ferry system is one of the major people-movers in the Lawrence Sound. The Marcellin State Ferries operate a fleet of 25 vessels carrying 26 million passengers a year to 20 ports of call. Thousands of workers commute daily to Marcellin from places such as Salem, NH; Methuen; and Tewksbury. In the aftermath of 9-11, motorists who ride ferries across Lawrence Sound were presented with a choice in order to make in their commute: submit to vehicle searches or risk missing the boat. Marcellin State troopers began randomly inspecting cars and trucks as they line up on docks for ferry rides. "It's not a huge hassle because our customers are already waiting in line anyway," said a spokeswoman for Marcellin State Ferries. "So far, people have been very obliging. They understand that this is just the tenor of the times." Each day, police choose a different ferry dock on Lawrence Sound -- there are 20 of them -- to stage the random searches. During these searches, only three motorists have balked at the request, and that two of them changed their minds once they heard they could be banned from coming aboard a ferry unless they let officers look inside their vehicles. The third motorist who protested demanded his money back and drove away. The state patrol claims the searches were voluntary, although motorists who did not consent to the searches were prevented from boarding the boat. Civil liberties groups complained that these random searches violated the state and federal constitution.

  1. Is a random search of the cars and trucks boarding Marcellin ferries during times of crisis an unconstitutional search? Why or why not?
  2. Should random vehicle searches be included as part of the security measures on Marcellin State Ferries?