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Full-Text Articles in Evidence

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

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

University of Richmond Law Review

In this essay, I contend that when evaluating the constitutionality of enhanced surveillance devices, the existing test for assessing the occurrence of a Fourth Amendment search should be modified. Specifically, I suggest that intrusiveness should be unambiguously adopted by the Court as the benchmark for assessing and defining the existence of a search under the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, intrusiveness should be clearly defined to require an examination of two factors: the functionality of a challenged form of surveillance and the potential for disclosure created by the device.


Herring V. United States: Mapp's "Artless" Overruling?, Michael Vitiello Jan 2010

Herring V. United States: Mapp's "Artless" Overruling?, Michael Vitiello

Nevada Law Journal

The central thesis of this essay is that, consistent with the “art of overruling,” the Court could have limited Mapp, for example, by extending the good-faith reasonable mistake rationale that animates cases like United States v. Leon. As developed below, the facts of Herring are quite similar to the facts of other cases where the Court upheld police conduct that, although erroneous, seemed reasonable; accordingly, excluding the illegally obtained evidence had no value as a deterrent of future conduct in light of the reasonableness of the police officer's mistake. However, Herring goes much further and points towards a much greater …


Picture This: Body Worn Video Devices ('Head Cams') As Tools For Ensuring Fourth Amendment Compliance By Police, David A. Harris Jan 2010

Picture This: Body Worn Video Devices ('Head Cams') As Tools For Ensuring Fourth Amendment Compliance By Police, David A. Harris

Articles

A new technology has emerged with the potential to increase police compliance with the law and to increase officers’ accountability for their conduct. Called “body worn video” (BWV) or “head cams,” these devices are smaller, lighter versions of the video and audio recording systems mounted on the dash boards of police cars. These systems are small enough that they consist of something the size and shape of a cellular telephone earpiece, and are worn by police officers the same way. Recordings are downloaded directly from the device into a central computer system for storage and indexing, which protects them from …