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Articles 1 - 17 of 17

Full-Text Articles in Fourth Amendment

Judicial Decisionmaking, Empathy, And The Limits Of Perception, Nicole Negowetti Jan 2014

Judicial Decisionmaking, Empathy, And The Limits Of Perception, Nicole Negowetti

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


A Unified Theory For Seizures Of The Person, Ronald J. Bacigal Jan 2012

A Unified Theory For Seizures Of The Person, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

Perhaps there is something about the final stages of their careers that causes people to resolve conflicts by reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable. Albert Einstein spent the last days of his career searching for a unified field theory that would eliminate the contradictory laws governing relativity and quantum mechanics. Stephen Hawking has taken up this quest which has been renamed a search for the Theory of Everything. On a “slightly” more modest level, I find the later stages of my career drawing me toward formulating a unified theory governing seizures of the person. The challenge is to blend three different tests …


Doctrinal Feedback And (Un)Reasonable Care, James Gibson Mar 2008

Doctrinal Feedback And (Un)Reasonable Care, James Gibson

Law Faculty Publications

The law frequently derives its content from the practices of the community it regulates. Examples are legion: Tort's reasonable care standard demands that we all exercise the prudence of an "ordinary" person. Ambiguous contracts find meaning in custom and usage of trade. The Fourth Amendment examines our collective expectations of privacy. And so on. This recourse to real-world circumstance has in-tuitive appeal, in that it helps courts resolve fact-dependent disputes and lends legitimacy to their judgments. Yet real-world practice can depart from that which the law expects. For example, suppose a physician provides more than reasonable care - extra tests, …


Making The Right Gamble: The Odds On Probable Cause, Ronald J. Bacigal Jan 2004

Making The Right Gamble: The Odds On Probable Cause, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

Again, is there probable cause to detain, arrest or search each passenger? Is there probable cause to search each passenger's luggage, their autos parked at the airport and their residences? This article seeks the answer to the hypotheticals in sources ranging from the judiciary's own pronouncements on probable cause to linguistics, history mathematics and cognitive psychology.


Raiding Islam: Searches That Target Religious Institutions, John G. Douglass Jan 2004

Raiding Islam: Searches That Target Religious Institutions, John G. Douglass

Law Faculty Publications

On the morning of March 20, 2002, while television cameras recorded the events for the evening news, dozens of federal agents entered and searched the offices of several Islamic educational and religious organizations in Northern Virginia. The agents were searching, it appears, for evidence that those organizations contributed money to international groups known to have sponsored terrorist acts. By most public accounts, the targeted institutions were regarded as moderate and progressive voices in American Islam. For that reason, the searches sent shock waves through the American Muslim community. Muslims who had supported the Administration's domestic war on terrorism began to …


Choosing Perspectives In Criminal Procedure, Ronald J. Bacigal Jul 1998

Choosing Perspectives In Criminal Procedure, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, Professor Bacigal examines the Supreme Court's use of various perspectives in examining the reasonableness of searches and seizures. Although the Supreme Court purports to rely on a consistent method of constitutional analysis when rendering decisions on Fourth Amendment issues, the case law in this area indicates that the Court is influenced sometimes by the citizen's perspective, sometimes by the police officers' perspective, and sometimes by the perspective of the hypothesized reasonable person. After identifying the role of perspectives in a number of seminal Court decisions, Professor Bacigal discusses the benefits and limitations of the Court's reliance on …


Putting The People Back Into The Fourth Amendment, Ronald J. Bacigal Mar 1994

Putting The People Back Into The Fourth Amendment, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

This Article attempts to answer such questions by examining the evolution of search-and-seizure law in America. Although the structural nature of decision making embodied in the Bill of Rights has far-ranging implications for that entire document, I limit my consideration to the unique aspects of the Fourth Amendment. In doing so I have followed the suggestion that constitutional interpretation considers a threefold question: "Does the Constitution mean what it was meant to mean, or what it has come to mean, or what it ought to mean?" Part I examines the historical involvement of juries in search-and-seizure cases; Part II considers …


The Right Of The People To Be Secure, Ronald J. Bacigal Jan 1993

The Right Of The People To Be Secure, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this Article defines searches and seizures of property and person, discussing the Supreme Court's initially broad interpretation of the Fourth Amendment and its subsequent narrowing in later decisions. Part II discusses several police "chase cases" leading up to the elimination of accidental and attempted seizures from Fourth Amendment protection in Brower v. County of Inyo and California v. Hodari D. Part Ill analyzes the Brower decision and its effect on accidental seizures, concluding that the analysis set forth therein should be abolished and advocating an alternate test. Part IV confronts the Court's elimination of attempted seizures from …


In Pursuit Of The Elusive Fourth Amendment: The Police Chase Cases, Ronald J. Bacigal Oct 1990

In Pursuit Of The Elusive Fourth Amendment: The Police Chase Cases, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

The first section of this article considers whether the police officer's intent is an indispensable component of fourth amendment seizures. The second section of the article addresses the Court's efforts to define a seizure· by focusing upon the objective causal link between an officer's efforts to apprehend a suspect and the suspect's attempt to avoid apprehension.


Dodging A Bullet, But Opening Old Wounds In Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence, Ronald J. Bacigal Jan 1986

Dodging A Bullet, But Opening Old Wounds In Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

The Court began its opinion in Winston by "putting to one side the procedural protections of the warrant requirement. " The parties agreed that the defendant had received "a full measure of procedural protections"and that the state had met the "ordinary" standard of probable cause for a search. "Notwithstanding the existence of probable cause" and the state's full compliance with the procedures required by the warrant clause, the Court found that the reasonableness clause of the fourth amendment demands "a more substantial justification" than probable cause. The Court viewed this higher level of justification as a substantive requirement of the …


An Alternative Approach To The Good Faith Controversy, Ronald J. Bacigal Jan 1986

An Alternative Approach To The Good Faith Controversy, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines the role of police motivation in all facets of fourth amendment jurisprudence and demonstrates that the Court has often considered good faith as one relevant but ill-defined factor in determining substantive aspects of the fourth amendment. The Article concludes that this ambiguous and flexible approach to substantive fourth amendment rights should be utilized when applying the remedy of exclusion.


The Road To Exclusion Is Paved With Bad Intentions: A Bad Faith Corollary To The Good Faith Exception, Ronald J. Bacigal Apr 1985

The Road To Exclusion Is Paved With Bad Intentions: A Bad Faith Corollary To The Good Faith Exception, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

This Article will demonstrate that a search pursuant to a properly issued warrant may trigger application of the exclusionary rule if: (1) there is police bad faith in delaying execution of the warrant, and (2) such bad faith results in additional intrusions upon individual privacy. Although this Article is limited to a consideration of bad faith in delaying the execution of search warrants, the discussion points the way to application of the concept of bad faith to all aspects of fourth amendment jurisprudence.


Review Of Search And Seizure: Constitutional And Common Law, Ronald J. Bacigal Jan 1983

Review Of Search And Seizure: Constitutional And Common Law, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

Review of Search and Seizure: Constitutional and Common Law by John W. Hall.


Warrantless Searches And Seizures In Virginia, Ronald J. Bacigal Jan 1983

Warrantless Searches And Seizures In Virginia, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

There is a well-recognized lack of consistency and clarity in fourth amendment decisions. At times, each search and seizure case seen is unique and the decisions appear to rest on factual determinations rather than on legal principles. Nonetheless, it is desirable to have some understanding of the basic principles of the fourth amendment, and the way in which these principles affect individual cases.


The Jury As A Source Of Reasonable Search And Seizure Law, Ronald J. Bacigal Jan 1980

The Jury As A Source Of Reasonable Search And Seizure Law, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

The definition of a reasonable search has bedeviled the United States Supreme Court for some ninety years. Formal logic or legal reasoning assists the Court in tracing premise to conclusion, but does not alone suggest the initial premise. The Court's difficulty in fourth amendment cases, in general, lies in identifying the premise-the fundamental value which is embodied in this constitutional guarantee. The Court has recognized that this fundamental value, whatever it is, has an origin outside the language of the amendment, and the Court has considered sources such as history, popular consensus, natural law, and utilitarian balancing to find this …


The Fourth Amendment In Flux: The Rise And Fall Of Probable Cause, Ronald J. Bacigal Jan 1979

The Fourth Amendment In Flux: The Rise And Fall Of Probable Cause, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

This article will demonstrate the Supreme Court's inability to develop an objective methodology to derive and apply fourth amendment principles under either the traditional probable cause approach or the balancing approach. A detailed analysis of traditional probable cause will reveal that its premises are ultimately subjectively derived? This examination will also show that returning to traditional probable cause would necessitate resurrecting the unrealistic premise that an individual's privacy interest is always outweighed by the government's interest in searching if the authorities meet a static standard of probable cause. The article will then discuss the advent of the balancing approach and …


Some Observations And Proposals On The Nature Of The Fourth Amendment, Ronald J. Bacigal May 1978

Some Observations And Proposals On The Nature Of The Fourth Amendment, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

This article will analyze the fourth amendment from both the individual and limitation perspectives, and evaluate the desirability of each as a determinant of the reach of fourth amendment protection in specific situations. The individual perspective alone is an inadequate model to evaluate all interests relevant to fourth amendment problems.Conjunctive use of both perspectives, however, allows a complete and balanced analysis of the fourth amendment, and can eliminate the need to ponder such difficult questions as which expectations of privacy are socially justifiable and when an individual has waived his privacy rights. Although an accommodation between the two perspectives is …