Cynthia Lee, Professor of Law at George Washington University Law School, will discuss the Container Doctrine at a public event at 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 14 in the Moot Court Room at C-M College of Law at 1801 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland.

The Container Doctrine, a rule established by the Supreme Court in the 1970s, allows police officers with probable cause to believe that a suitcase, footlocker or other container contains contraband or evidence of a crime, to seize the container, but requires police to get a warrant before opening or searching the container.

Lee theorizes that the court's gradual movement away from requiring warrants before searching containers reflects a larger jurisprudential shift from the Warrant Preference view of the Fourth Amendment toward the Reasonableness view of the Fourth Amendment.

The program is free and open to the public, and offers one free hour of Continuing Legal Education credit for members of the Ohio bar.

About Cleveland-Marshall College of Law

Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, founded in 1897 as the Cleveland Law School, was the first law school in Ohio to admit women and one of the first to admit minorities. In 1946, the Cleveland Law School merged with the John Marshall School of Law, founded in 1916, to become the Cleveland-Marshall Law School. In 1969, the Law School joined Cleveland's new public university as its sixth college and was renamed the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law of Cleveland State University. Early graduates of the College of Law laid the foundation for the legal profession in Northeast Ohio. Now in its 113th year, Cleveland-Marshall prepares promising students to be America's leaders in the 21st century in law, business, non-profit agencies and government.

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