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Giving The Fourth Amendment Meaning: Creating An Adversarial Warrant Proceeding To Protect From Unreasonable Searches And Seizures, Ben Mordechai-Strongin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

For at least the past 40 years, police and prosecutors have had free reign in conducting illegal searches and seizures nominally barred by the Fourth Amendment. The breadth of exceptions to the warrant requirement, the lax interpretation of probable cause, and especially the “good faith” doctrine announced in U.S. v. Leon have led to severe violations of privacy rights, trauma to those wrongly searched or seized, and a court system overburdened by police misconduct cases. Most scholars analyzing the issue agree that the rights guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment—to be free from unreasonable search and seizure—have been severely eroded or …