Know Your Rights: 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments – What Can the Police Do?

Know Your Rights: 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments – What Can the Police Do?

The moment you interact with law enforcement, the Constitution either protects you or it doesn’t — and the difference comes down to whether you understand the rules.

The gap between knowing your rights and not knowing them is exactly why this course exists.

Criminal Procedure is first-year law school material brought to life for teenagers.

It covers the constitutional framework that governs every search, every arrest, and every interrogation in America — built around the three amendments that do most of the heavy lifting: the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth.

The Fourth Amendment — Your Shield Against Unreasonable Searches

The Fourth Amendment unit starts with a deceptively simple question: what counts as a search? Students work through the Katz reasonable expectation of privacy test, learn how courts define seizures, and then dig into the warrant requirement and the long list of exceptions that allow police to search without one.

At the center of the warrant requirement is probable cause — one of the most important and most misunderstood concepts in all of criminal law. Probable cause is more than a hunch and less than certainty.

It means police have enough specific, reliable facts to reasonably believe a crime has been committed or that evidence of a crime will be found in the place they want to search.

Students learn exactly where that line is, how courts evaluate it, and why it matters every time an officer asks to search your car, your bag, or your home.

Can police search your phone without a warrant? What about your car? Your school locker? What happens when an officer says “mind if I take a look?” — and you say yes?

These questions have specific legal answers, and this course teaches all of them.

We cover traffic stops, Terry stops and reasonable suspicion, school searches under T.L.O. and Safford v. Redding, digital searches under Riley v. California, GPS tracking, the third-party doctrine, and every major warrant exception: consent, plain view, search incident to arrest, the automobile exception, exigent circumstances, and inventory searches.

From there, students explore the exclusionary rule — the legal doctrine that throws out illegally obtained evidence.

But the story doesn’t end there.

The fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine extends that protection further: if the original search was illegal, then everything discovered as a result of that search is tainted too — the “fruit” of the poisonous tree.

A confession obtained after an illegal search. A witness identified through an unlawful arrest.

Physical evidence found because of an unconstitutional stop.

All of it can be suppressed.

Students also learn the three exceptions prosecutors use to save that evidence anyway: good faith, inevitable discovery, and independent source.

The Fifth Amendment — More Than Just “Pleading the Fifth”

Most people think the Fifth Amendment is just about staying silent.

It’s much bigger than that.

In the context of criminal procedure, the Fifth Amendment does three distinct and powerful things.

First, it protects against double jeopardy — the government cannot try you twice for the same crime once you have been acquitted or convicted.

Second, it guarantees the right to a grand jury indictment for serious federal crimes, meaning the government must convince a panel of citizens that enough evidence exists before it can even bring a felony charge.

Third — and most famously — it protects every person against self-incrimination: you cannot be forced to be a witness against yourself.

That self-incrimination protection is where the Miranda doctrine lives. “You have the right to remain silent.” Most teenagers have heard those words.

Almost none of them know what they actually mean.

The Miranda unit covers the truth behind the four biggest myths that television gets wrong every single time.

When does Miranda actually apply?

What does invoking your rights actually require?

Why does staying quiet not always protect you?

What happens if police keep questioning you after you’ve asked for a lawyer?

Students also learn the voluntariness standard for confessions — because Miranda isn’t the only protection against a coerced statement — and the public safety exception that allows police to question a suspect without warnings in genuine emergencies.

By the end of this unit, students know exactly what to say, when to say it, and why the words matter.

The Sixth Amendment — The Right to a Fair Fight

Once charges are filed, the Sixth Amendment takes over.

This unit covers the right to counsel from Gideon v. Wainwright forward — including what happens when your lawyer does a bad job and the Strickland standard for ineffective assistance.

Students learn the right to a speedy and public trial, how jury selection works and what Batson challenges do, and the double jeopardy doctrine that prevents the government from trying you twice for the same crime.

The course closes with sentencing, the constitutional limits on the death penalty, and the post-conviction remedies — appeals, habeas corpus, and the Innocence Project — that exist for when the system gets it wrong.

This Course Is Built for Students Who Want the Truth

Every concept is taught through real Supreme Court cases, realistic fact patterns, and the same analytical framework used in American law schools.

No law degree required — just a willingness to think carefully and question what you thought you already knew.

Because the Constitution only protects you if you understand it.