3 court cases of interest

 Penry v. Lynaugh (1989)
 A man accused of capital murder was trialed to be put to death, but the complication was that he was proven mildly mentally retarded and said to have had the brain competance of a 6 year old.  In the state of Texas where the death penalty is most commonly practice, it was said that killing the man was unconstitutional via his 8th ammendment rights.  He was only sentanced for life in jail, but in my opinion if he was only as competant as a 6 year old, it might have been right to charge him a little less harsh, but on the other hand he did commit capital murder which is messed up.  This case interested me because it was similar to the case we did in class with the other mildly mentally retarded man.

 United States v. Drayton (2002)
 A bus was stopped by two police officers searching for drugs and weapons, each member of the bus was asked to be searched and in the end 2 men were caught smuggling illegal cocaine strapped to their inner thighs.  The trail was brought to the court under a search and seizure charger claiming that the officers never informed the men on the bus of their right to deny the search without a warrant, and although they gave their concent (regrettedly) they were still found guilty under the basis that the 4th ammendment doesn't require officers to tell those being searched that they have the right to deny a search.  In my opinion I feel as if the officers should have had a warrant to search the whole bus itself, but then again the bus driver works for public transportation companies and it wouldn'tbe smart for an innocent bus driver to deny government authority consent to search their bus.

 Waller v. Florida (1969-1970)
It had to do with double jeopardy because a man was found guilty of 2 crimes and tried and imprisoned for 180 days because of them.  Afterward the same crimes were filed for another court but the case was decided that the supreme court said if a trial is tried in municipal court then there can't be a second trial under any circumstance with the law of double jeopardy. The concept of double jeopardy has interested me ever since i gained knowledge of the O.J. simpson case.