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Full-Text Articles in Law

Policing Identity, Wayne A. Logan Oct 2012

Policing Identity, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

Identity has long played a critical role in policing. Learning “who” an individual is not only affords police knowledge of possible criminal history, but also of “what” an individual might have done. To date, however, these matters have eluded sustained scholarly attention, a deficit that has assumed ever greater significance as government databases have become more comprehensive and powerful. Identity evidence, in short, has and continues to suffer from an identity crisis, which this Article seeks to remedy. The Article does so by first surveying the methods historically used by police to identify individuals, from nineteenth-century efforts to measure bodies …


Revisiting "Special Needs" Theory Via Airport Searches, Alexander A. Reinert Jul 2012

Revisiting "Special Needs" Theory Via Airport Searches, Alexander A. Reinert

Articles

Controversy has raged since the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) introduced Advanced Imaging Technology, capable of producing detailed images of travelers' bodies, and "enhanced" pat frisks as part of everyday airport travel. In the face of challenges in the courts and in public discourse, the TSA has justified the heightened security measures as a necessary means to prevent terrorist attacks. The purpose of this Essay is to situate the Fourth Amendment implications of the new regime within a broader historical context. Most germane, after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) introduced sweeping new screening of air travelers in the 1960s and 1970s …


Drawing Lines: Unrelated Probable Cause As A Prerequisite To Early Dna Collection, David H. Kaye Jan 2012

Drawing Lines: Unrelated Probable Cause As A Prerequisite To Early Dna Collection, David H. Kaye

Journal Articles

Swabbing the inside of a cheek has become part of the custodial arrest process in many jurisdictions. The majority view (thus far) is that routinely collecting DNA before conviction (and analyzing it, recording the results, and comparing them to DNA profiles from crime-scene databases) is consistent with Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. However, some judges and commentators have argued that DNA sampling in advance of a determination by a judge or grand jury of probable cause for the arrest or charge is unconstitutional. This essay shows that this demand is largely unfounded. Either warrantless, suspicionless DNA collection …


Camreta And Al-Kidd: The Supreme Court, The Fourth Amendment, And Witnesses, Kit Kinports Jan 2012

Camreta And Al-Kidd: The Supreme Court, The Fourth Amendment, And Witnesses, Kit Kinports

Journal Articles

Although few noticed the link between them, two Supreme Court cases decided in the same week last Term, Ashcroft v. al-Kidd and Camreta v. Greene, both involved the Fourth Amendment implications of detaining witnesses to a crime. Al-Kidd, an American citizen, was arrested under the federal material witness statute in connection with an investigation into terrorist activities, and Greene, a nine-year-old suspected victim of child abuse, was seized and interrogated at school by two state officials. The opinions issued in the two cases did little to resolve the constitutional issues that arise in witness detention cases, and in fact …


Why Crime Severity Analysis Is Not Reasonable, Christopher Slobogin, Jeffrey Bellin, Et Al. Jan 2012

Why Crime Severity Analysis Is Not Reasonable, Christopher Slobogin, Jeffrey Bellin, Et Al.

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Jeffrey Bellin’s article, Crime Severity Distinctions and the Fourth Amendment: Reassessing Reasonableness in a Changing World, argues that the severity of the crime under investigation ought to be taken into account in assessing both the reasonableness of searches and whether a government action is a search in the first place. In pursuit of this objective, his article provides the best attempt to date at dealing with the difficult issue of separating serious from not-so serious crimes (he ends up with three categories—grave, serious and minor. He then makes the enticing argument that calibrating the degree of Fourth Amendment protection according …


Is The Exclusionary Rule Dead?, Craig M. Bradley Jan 2012

Is The Exclusionary Rule Dead?, Craig M. Bradley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In three recent decisions, Hudson v. Michigan, Herring v. United States, and last Term's Davis v. United States, the Supreme Court has indicated a desire to severely restrict the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule. A majority of the Justices wants to limit its application to cases where the police have violated the Fourth Amendment purposely, knowingly, or recklessly, but not where they have engaged in "simple, isolated negligence" or where negligence is "attenuated" from the discovery of the evidence. They have further suggested that evidence should not be excluded where the police have behaved as reasonable policemen, using the approach from …


Mission Creep In National Security Law, Fletcher N. Baldwin Jr., Daniel R. Koslosky Jan 2012

Mission Creep In National Security Law, Fletcher N. Baldwin Jr., Daniel R. Koslosky

UF Law Faculty Publications

Many anti-terrorism measures are enacted with broad public support. There is often a general willingness on the part of the public to accept greater civil liberties deprivations in the face of a specific threat, or otherwise in times of general crisis, than would otherwise be the case. Sweeping anti-terrorism legislation is frequently crafted in reaction to the presence, or perceived presence, of immense, imminent danger. The medium and long-term consequences of the legislation may not fully be comprehended when political leaders and policymakers take swift action in the face strong public pressure in light of a recent terrorist attack or …