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Full-Text Articles in Law

Policing The Prosecutor: Race, The Fourth Amendment, And The Prosecution Of Criminal Cases, Renee Mcdonald Hutchins Jan 2018

Policing The Prosecutor: Race, The Fourth Amendment, And The Prosecution Of Criminal Cases, Renee Mcdonald Hutchins

Journal Articles

As this article explores, while the Fourth Amendment is commonly criticized for the discretion it affords police officers, an overlooked result of the amendment’s lax regulation of the police is the enhanced power it affords prosecutors. Though for a time a warrant was the notional measure of reasonableness, over the last century the Court has crafted several exceptions to that measure to give the police greater leeway during on-the-street encounters. The Court has concurrently retreated from robust application of the exclusionary rule to remedy constitutional violations. These shifts have meant far more predictable wins for the prosecution at the suppression …


Civil Arrest? (Another) St. Louis Case Study In Unconstitutionality, Mae Quinn, Eirik Cheverud Jan 2016

Civil Arrest? (Another) St. Louis Case Study In Unconstitutionality, Mae Quinn, Eirik Cheverud

Journal Articles

This Article advances a simple claim in need of enforcement in this country right now: no person may be arrested for an alleged violation of civil, as opposed to criminal, law. Indeed, courts have long interpreted the Fourth Amendment as prohibiting arrest except when probable cause exists to believe that a crime has been committed and that the defendant is the person who committed the crime. However, in many places police take citizens into custody without a warrant for the non-criminal conduct of allegedly breaking civil laws. This unfortunate phenomenon received national attention in St. Louis, Missouri following the death …


Warrantless Searches And Smartphones: Privacy In The Palm Of Your Hand?, Margaret M. Lawton Sep 2012

Warrantless Searches And Smartphones: Privacy In The Palm Of Your Hand?, Margaret M. Lawton

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Incident to a drug arrest, a police officer removes a smartphone from the pocket of the defendant. The smartphone may have incriminating evidence-phone numbers, pictures, text messages, and e-mails. But can the officer examine the smartphone on the scene or back at the station? Or does the officer need to show probable cause and obtain a warrant before examining the phone? If the phone were instead the arrestee's wallet or a cigarette package, under the search incident to lawful arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement the officer could open and search inside either of these "containers." Anything found …


Looking Through The Prism Of Privacy And Trespass: Smartphones And The Fourth Amendment, Saby Ghoshray Sep 2012

Looking Through The Prism Of Privacy And Trespass: Smartphones And The Fourth Amendment, Saby Ghoshray

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Technology in the twenty-first century has dramatically changed our lives, but the law has not kept pace with technological advances. The treatment of smartphones in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is no exception. This is made evident by the increasingly scattered outcomes of litigation involving the privacy interests of smartphone owners.' As the cross-jurisdictional inconsistencies of judicial decisions applying the Fourth Amendment to smartphones mount, I am drawn to seek answers from two foundational pillars of the Supreme Court's search and seizure jurisprudence: protection against invasions of privacy and the bulwark against trespass.


The Anatomy Of A Search: Intrusiveness And The Fourth Amendment, Renee Mcdonald Hutchins May 2010

The Anatomy Of A Search: Intrusiveness And The Fourth Amendment, Renee Mcdonald Hutchins

Journal Articles

For more than two months beginning in late December of 2005, police officers in New York State continuously monitored the location and movements of Scott Weaver's van using a surreptitiously attached global positioning system ("GPS") device, known as a "Qball."' The reason Weaver was targeted for police surveillance has never been disclosed. 2 In addition, law enforcement made no attempt to justify the heightened scrutiny of Weaver by seeking the pre-authorization of a warrant from a neutral magistrate.3 Rather, for sixty-five days, the police subjected Weaver to intense surveillance without oversight, interruption, or explanation. 4 More than a year after …


Tied Up In Knotts? Gps And The Fourth Amendment, Renee Mcdonald Hutchins Jan 2007

Tied Up In Knotts? Gps And The Fourth Amendment, Renee Mcdonald Hutchins

Journal Articles

Judicial and scholarly assessment of emerging technology seems poised to drive the Fourth Amendment down one of three paths. The first would simply relegate the amendment to a footnote in history books by limiting its reach to harms that the framers specifically envisioned. A modified version of this first approach would dispense with expansive constitutional notions of privacy and replace them with legislative fixes. A third path offers the amendment continued vitality but requires the U.S. Supreme Court to overhaul its Fourth Amendment analysis. Fortunately, a fourth alternative is available to cabin emerging technologies within the existing doctrinal framework. Analysis …


The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act And The Fourth Amendment: Time To Legislate A Criminal Standard For Probable Cause, Joseph M. Teefey Jr. Mar 1994

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act And The Fourth Amendment: Time To Legislate A Criminal Standard For Probable Cause, Joseph M. Teefey Jr.

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Fourth Amendment Standard For Searches Of Students By School Officials: Reasonable Suspicion Or Probable Cause?, Lois Yankowski Sep 1981

The Fourth Amendment Standard For Searches Of Students By School Officials: Reasonable Suspicion Or Probable Cause?, Lois Yankowski

Antioch Law Journal

The fourth amendment rights of students subjected to searches by school administrators or teachers has been the subject of much legal debate and confusion.' The Supreme Court has never considered the issue of search and seizure in the schools and has never addressed even the more general question of whether fourth amendment protections apply to juveniles. The lower courts which have examined the school search issue, with one exception,2 have provided students with substantially less fourth amendment protection than adults in non-school environments enjoy. These courts have focused on the in loco parentis status of school officials and have found …


The Impact Of Smith V. Maryland On The Law Of Pen Registers, Mark Bialek Sep 1981

The Impact Of Smith V. Maryland On The Law Of Pen Registers, Mark Bialek

Antioch Law Journal

In Smith v. Maryland,' the Supreme Court was presented with the question of whether the installation and use of a pen register2 constitutes a "search" under the fourth amendment.3 The pen register is a device which can be used to determine the telephone numbers dialed from a phone under investigation or the number of rings on calls coming into the phone. The question was raised by petitioner Michael Lee Smith, who was convicted of robbery, at least in part, based on evidence obtained from the installation and use of a pen register.4 Smith claimed that the use of a pen …