Search and seizure

“ Reasonable cause, as required by this rule, exists when officers have trustworthy information which rises to more than mere suspicion that the vehicle contains evidence subject to seizure and a person of reasonable caution would be justified in believing an offense has been committed or is being committed. E.g., Reyes v. State, 329 Ark. 539, 954 S.W.2d 199 (1997) . Here, we are called upon to review whether a positive alert by a canine constitutes sufficient probable cause to search a vehicle. ”

“ The use in evidence of weapons seized in a 'hot pursuit' search or search incident to arrest satisfies this criterion because of the need to protect the arresting officers from weapons to which the suspect might resort. The search for and seizure of fruits are, of course, justifiable on independent grounds: The fruits are an object of the pursuit or arrest of the suspect, and should be restored to their true owner. The seizure of contraband has been justified on the ground that the suspect has not even a bare possessory right to contraband. ”

“ Once the fit is passed, these unfortunate individuals have generally no recollection of their past actions, and since in their normal state they are quiet, law-abiding persons, it is extremely difficult to trace back the deed to the right source, or to discover the disease, because they show no other symptoms of epilepsy, apart from the particular criminal act.
Samt describes a still more complicated form of this psychic seizure, in which the personality is [Pg 91] altered without there being any loss of consciousness. ”

“ The imagination readily fixes upon such symptoms as foaming at the mouth and barking noises, exalts these phenomena over deeper symptoms that a physician might have detected, and finds a simple explanation of the whole complex seizure as demoniac possession or, in modern phrase, as a psychopathy. ”

“ The friends around do not look upon the phenomena of the attack with the critical and philosophic eye of the physician; hence any information from them as to the part convulsed, the colour of the skin, the duration of the seizure, and so on, is extremely vague and untrustworthy. ”

“ Epilepsy affects between 1 and 2 percent of the U.S. population. Of people who have epilepsy, two-thirds appear to have no structural abnormality of the brain; in the remaining third, the disease can be traced to brain damage at birth, a severe head injury, an infection that caused brain damage, or a brain tumor.
The emotional symptoms of epilepsy can involve either anxiety or depression or both. Once a person has had a convulsive seizure, he or she may live in constant apprehension that another seizure will occur. There may be occasional, transient feelings of unreality. ”

“ If several fits follow one another, or if one is very long or severe, send for a doctor.
When a seizure occurs in public, a constable should be summoned, who, being a "St. John" man, will be of far more use than bystanders brimming over with sympathy—and ignorance. If some kindly householder near by will allow the victim to sleep for an hour or two—a boon usually denied more from fear of recurrence than lack of sympathy, it is better than taking him home. If not, let someone call a cab, and deliver the victim safely to his friends. ”

“ The doctor from Gratz, in ten or fifteen minutes, overtook me. He apologised for having followed me, but said that he could not conscientiously take his leave without a few words more. He told me that he could not be mistaken; no natural disease exhibited the same symptoms; and that death was already very near. There remained, however, a day, or possibly two, of life. If the fatal seizure were at once arrested, with great care and skill her strength might possibly return. ”

“ Then I gave him the second injection.
“Good!” he said approvingly. “It acts marvellously. I shall be better in a few moments. Did you feel your head reeling and your strength failing?”
I responded in the affirmative.
“And so did I,” he answered. “The seizure is sharp and sudden, the brain becoming paralysed. That is the condition of the young lady: paralysis of the brain and heart, coma and collapse.”
“But the cause?” I asked.
He was pale as death, yet he took no notice of his own condition.
“The cause?” he echoed, in his deep guttural German. “It is for us to discover that. ”

“ Such a victim awakes confused, but imputes his mental sluggishness to a hearty supper or "a bad night". A swollen tongue, blood-stained pillow, and urinated bed arouse suspicion as to the real cause, suspicion which is confirmed by a seizure during the day. He is more fortunate (if such a term can rightly be used of any sufferer from this malady) than his fellow victim whose attacks occur during the day, often under circumstances which, to a sensitive nature, are very mortifying. ”

“ Fearless, even reckless, as miners are in the pursuit of their dangerous and at all times laborious calling, he had often spoken with dread of a lingering illness, of the pain and tedium of a wasting disorder, not seldom declaring that a sudden, a swift seizure would be his choice if granted one. ”

“ The upturned eyes, which do not see, are horribly distorted, the child foams at the mouth, it is insensible, and the insensibility deepens into stupor, or is followed by heavy sleep, for a quarter of an hour, or an hour or more, from which the patient arouses feeling tired and bruised, and often with an aching head, but with no remembrance of what has passed during the seizure so distressing to bystanders. ”

“ The crises were Jacksonian.
Pallor, perspiration, shivering, irresponsiveness, clonic spasms of left arm followed. The patient always had a premonition permitting him to get into bed if he was sitting, for example, in his chair. Sometimes there was a dizzy sensation as if the body were being rotated to the left. This sensation did not occur at the beginning of the seizure and the patient fought against it, turning to the right. Sometimes he felt as if he were sliding at great speed down an inclined plane. ”

“ One of the symptoms which has always been regarded as a characteristic manifestation of the hysteria of civil practice is the occurrence of convulsive seizures which are sometimes with difficulty to be distinguished from epilepsy, and share with that disease the exhibition of movements, often of a very violent kind. ”

“ It may be only a coincidence, but it is a fact, that almost without exception the supporters of the theory that all suicides are insane have been medical attendants in asylums.
Closely connected with unsoundness of mind is the disease epilepsy and its consequences; as is well known, the less violent forms, those in which the convulsive seizures are less obvious, are more liable to end in mental impairment, and thence in suicide, than are the more well-developed cases of convulsion. ”

“ In this variety the attack, whether preceded or not by the premonitory symptoms already mentioned, is usually sudden, and occurs in the form of an apoplectic seizure, with great vascular engorgement, as seen in the flushed face, congested eyes, quick full pulse, and stertorous breathing. There is usually insensibility, and convulsions are not unfrequent. Death is often very sudden. This form, however, is also amenable to treatment. ”

“ The attacks are apt to recur on slight exertion, and even in aggravated cases without any such exciting cause. Occasionally the first seizure proves fatal; but more commonly death takes place as the result of repeated attacks. ”

“ I visited her several times, as the debility which ensued seemed greater than, under ordinary circumstances, should have followed on such an attack. About a fortnight later she had a fresh seizure, of a very similar kind. This time, however, the symptoms were aggravated, and accompanied by others of a more alarming character. Of these the most conspicuous were nausea, vomiting, violent perspiration, and increasing tendency to diarrhoea. The patient also complained of great sinking of the heart, and of a terrible lowness of spirits, almost amounting to a conviction that death was at hand. ”

“ The general mental state of the patient suffers proportionately—he becomes morose, despondent, irritable, homicidal, or suicidal in tendency. How far these retrograde symptoms are dependent on degenerative processes in the brain, and how much they result from the moral effect of the frequent epileptiform seizures, are questions that can only be determined by observing the effect of treatment, surgical or otherwise. Some cases respond readily to treatment, others are too far advanced to experience any material benefit, some end their days in the lunatic asylum. ”

“ Before Belford’s emergence I had come to the conclusion—though I could not see then how this was going to help—that the acceptance of the old butler—Poole—as a perfect trustworthy witness had been a mistake. I discovered, you see, that he suffers from that inconvenient disorder hay-fever.
“When in the throes of a seizure he can neither see, hear nor speak; is conscious, in fact, of nothing save discomfort. That these seizures last sometimes for as long as a minute and a half I can swear to from having watched the old man struggle with one. ”

“ If the cells of one center or class of centers be too readily explosive, they may attract the blood so strongly as to inhibit the function of other parts of the brain by the comparatively anaemic condition these are thus left in. Of this we have an illustration in the phenomena of an epileptic seizure. Here we have the blood determined in such volume to the motor centers that those which are more immediately related to consciousness have not sufficient left to enable them to sustain function with. Some writers seem to insist that during the seizure the whole brain becomes almost bloodless ”

“ The practitioner may be unwilling to risk it, if the patient consents. Each case must be judged on its own special grounds. We cannot think that this young man is doomed to perpetual separation from the society of womanhood during the period of its bloom and attraction. But to provoke another seizure after his past experiences would be too much like committing suicide. We fear that we must trust to the chapter of accidents. The strange malady—for such it is—has become a second nature, and may require as energetic a shock to displace it as it did to bring it into existence. ”

“ The born criminal is an epileptic, not however afflicted with the common form of this disease, but with a special kind. The pathological basis, the etiology, and the anatomical and psychological characteristics are identical, but there are many differences. While in the ordinary form motor anomalies are very common, in the criminal form they are very rare, while in ordinary epilepsy the mental explosions are accompanied by unconsciousness, in the other form they are weakened and spread over the whole existence, and consciousness is, relatively speaking, preserved ”

“ In a few hours he wakes, with headache and mental confusion, not knowing he has been ill until told, and having no recollection of events just preceding the seizure, until reminded of them when they are slowly, and with painful effort, brought to mind. He is exhausted, and often vomits. ”

“ Brandy and restoratives being administered, he revived sufficiently to travel on to Manchester, being assisted out of the train at London Road, and two porters had helped him into a cab and accompanied him to the hotel, where, on being put to bed, he again lapsed into unconsciousness. A doctor was called, but he could not diagnose the ailment, except that the patient’s heart was seriously affected and, that being so, a fatal termination of the seizure might ensue. ”

“ A third class are liable to attacks of semi-consciousness which may either follow upon or take the place of a seizure, and during these attacks actions are performed automatically and without consciousness on the part of the patient. ”

“ We should not consider it expedient to reject all cases of epilepsy and general paralysis forthwith upon their application, although insanity so complicated is generally very hopeless; for an asylum with special appliances for treatment would at least be desirable to the victims of those sad maladies in their early stages. ”

“ But on the other hand, while the eccentric source of irritation which is easily curable may have been the active agent in developing the seizures, it may be none the less true that the central infirmity which determines the abnormal susceptibility, to excessive generation and epileptic explosion of nervous force, may also be present and the animal cannot be considered as sound until a sufficient length of time has elapsed after the removal of the peripheral irritation and no new seizure has taken place. ”

“ It would seem as if the explosion of nerve force in the brain centres,—which, physiologically speaking, an attack of epilepsy evidently is,—causes eventual deterioration of the physical basis of mind and will, so that mental operations can no longer be performed with their wonted expertness or accuracy, nor decisions made as rationally as before. ”

“ In them, without ever resulting in epileptic dementia, there occur along with the epileptic seizures attacks of unconsciousness, of excitement, dream states, and porio-maniacal outbreaks. They differ from the genuine epilepsy by the absence of the characteristic dementia, of attacks of petit mal, and by the fact that the seizures are never purely endogenous in origin. They are always due to extraneous causes, eminently such of a psychic nature. ”

“ As the disease progresses the patient becomes helpless, bedridden, wet, and filthy. The result is always death. Convulsions like those of epilepsy are liable to occur, from which the patients may rally, or in which they may die or linger a few days. ”