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Criminal Procedure Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Criminal Procedure

Fourth Amendment Lessons From The Highway And The Subway: A Principled Approach To Suspicionless Searches, Ricardo J. Bascuas Jan 2007

Fourth Amendment Lessons From The Highway And The Subway: A Principled Approach To Suspicionless Searches, Ricardo J. Bascuas

Articles

The threat of future terrorist attacks has sped the proliferation of random, suspicionless searches and seizures, such as those now made of New York City subway riders. Courts assess the legality of such searches with an inherently flawed balancing test developed to assess searches and seizures made without "probable cause." Although scholars and Justices alike have decried the resort to balancing individual interests against the government's need to search, no alternative framework has been proposed. This Article proposes a more principled, objective inquiry for determining when suspicionless searches can be made. To eliminate the need for balancing, this Article advances …


Search Me?, John Burkoff Jan 2007

Search Me?, John Burkoff

Articles

Professor Burkoff contends that most people who purportedly "consent" to searches by law enforcement officers are not really - freely and voluntarily, as the Supreme Court decisional law supposedly requires - consenting to such searches. Yet, absent unusual circumstances, the great likelihood is that a court nonetheless will conclude that such consent was valid and any evidence seized admissible under the Fourth Amendment. Professor Burkoff argues, however, that the Supreme Court's 2006 decision in Georgia v. Randolph now dictates that the application of consent law doctrine should reflect the actual voluntariness (or involuntariness) of the questioned consents that come before …