The Supreme Court of the United States

One can observe that Mr. Dwight Dexter’s rights were not upheld in the case Dexter v. Michigan State Prosecutor.. His rights that were not upheld including rights in the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments, such as the right to a fair trial ,and the right to a search warrant. The following evidence will give fact of the matter that Dexter’s rights were not upheld throughout the steps of the criminal justice system.

Sheriff Dodd’s actions violated the rights of Dexter. According to the notes from Sheriff Dodd, he had searched Dexter’s car without a search warrant. That is a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which gives security to unreasonable searches. The prosecution coached Randolph Stone and Morgan Livingston for the trial. Stone admitted in 1999 that he wasn’t supposed to say the fact that Dexter was on foot and without a weapon and he did not confess to any crime.

However the prosecution coached Stone to lie about his testimony and say the opposite during the trial. The prosecution also coached Livingston to hide the fact that he was a paid informant by the state and had lured Dexter to Detroit in an attempt to frame him. Livingston was successful in the attempt to frame Dexter because it led to success and Dexter being searched with unreasonable cause. Prosecution had twisted two key witnesses to go against Dexter in the trial. This led to unfairness which will continue on in this brief.

The rights of Dexter according to the Fifth Amendment were violated. The amendment prevents the government from trying people unfairly nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. A fair trial was not provided to Dexter so his rights in the Sixth Amendment were not upheld. The Sixth Amendment states that the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.

Dexter has been jailed for 25 years since 1982, and his appeal was still in process to the Supreme Court currently pending. Based on the jury pool and peremptory strikes, there were only white people in the final jury which is a non-representative jury. The only four African Americans were struck peremptory by prosecution with reasoning so one can’t argue that the jury was impartial for being all white, but you can argue that prosecution pushed for only whites in the jury.

It was not fair for Dexter to not have the people of the same ethnic background or peers of him on the jury.Dexter was not provided with adequate counsel because, both federal and state courts must provide a lawyer if the accused cannot afford to hire one.

Dexter didn’t have an attorney, so he was appointed one. The attorney he was appointed was unprepared and unorganized. The attorney seriously cheated Dexter because in the pretrial notes it says the “defense attorney tells judge that he has not been to the crime scene, or viewed the crime scene photographs, or seen the ballistics report.

He also states that he has not viewed the prosecution’s witness list. Judge responds that all of these materials have been available to the defense for several weeks.” The attorney had done nothing that could’ve helped defend Dexter. Not even a single witness was called to the stand to aid Dexter.

The problem in this is that Dexter and his defense stood no chance against prosecution and was not given fair trial. With one being appointed to him it’s not fair for Dexter for him to not care Strickland v. Washington supports this because the court upheld the defendant’s conviction that his rights had been violated when his lawyer did not provide enough evidence to avoid the death sentence.

Dexter’s rights are to be protected by the Amendments, but his fourth, fifth, and sixth were violated. All in all, Dexter’s rights were not protected and not upheld within the criminal justice system. Please give this man justice and review this Amicus Brief to see for yourself that Mr. Dwight Dexter’s rights were not upheld.