Los Angeles v. Patel

Los Angeles v. Patel
Name:
Institution:
Part One: Summary
The city of Los Angeles v. Patel, is one of the cases that has challenged the constitutionality of the some of the laws and the aspects of privacy especially when referring to hotels and their client's information. In this case, Ramilaben Patel and Naranjibhai, own and operate a number of motels in Los Angeles. The hotly contested issues on the case relates to the fact that, the Los AngelesMunicipal Code, otherwise referred to as the LAMC, dictates that the motel owners should at all-time maintain a detailed record of the clients information, which the police can request at any given time without the need of a search warrant(Oyez.org, 2015). The Patels had filed a suit in which they argued that the LAMC violated their fourth amendment right that protected them and their clients from unreasonable searches. However, the city of los angles had argued that motels and hotels are highly regulated businesses and were subject to search without warranty for the same. When the court case was heard, the trial court first held that the city of Los Angeles had the right to search the motels without the search warrant, and thus was not a violation of the fourth amendment. The three judge verdict at the Court Of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit also upheld the same decision(Epic.org, 2015). However, at the rehearing at en banc, this ruling was reversed, siting that though the inspections of the motels constitute a search under the fourth amendment, it is also unreasonable not to offer the motel owners the chance for a judicial review.
Part Two: The Arguments
According to the plaintiffs of the case in which case are the Patels, their argument was based on the rights of the fourth amendment. Ideally in their argument, the police of the city of LosAngeles do not have the right to bulge in at their motel premises demanding to inspect the record of their clients if they do not have a warrant for the same. The fourth amendment protects the citizens against unreasonable searches carried out by the police(Savage, 2014). This would reduce the instances of interruptions that the police would make and the violation of the privacy of the motel owners as well as that of their clients.
According to the defendantsthat is the city of LosAngeles, the motels fall under the category of the highly regulated businesses. This means that the police have a right to bulge in and inspect the record of the clients relative to ...