Law Commons^™

Searches And The Misunderstood History Of Suspicion And Probable Cause: Part One, Fabio Arcila

ExpressO

This article, the first of a two-part series, argues that during the Framers’ era many if not most judges believed they could issue search warrants without independently assessing the adequacy of probable cause, and that this view persisted even after the Fourth Amendment became effective. This argument challenges the leading originalist account of the Fourth Amendment, which Professor Thomas Davies published in the Michigan Law Review in 1999.

The focus in this first article is upon an analysis of the common law and how it reflected the Fourth Amendment’s restrictions. Learned treatises in particular, and to a lesser extent a …

Changing Expectations Of Privacy And The Fourth Amendment, Robert Power

ExpressO

Public attitudes about privacy are central to the development of fourth amendment doctrine in two respects. These are the two “reasonableness” requirements, which define the scope of the fourth amendment (it protects only “reasonable” expectations of privacy), and provide the key to determining compliance with its commands (it prohibits “unreasonable” searches and seizures). Both requirements are interpreted in substantial part through evaluation of societal norms about acceptable levels of privacy from governmental intrusions. Caselaw, poll data, newspaper articles, internet sites, and other vehicles for gauging public attitudes after the September 11 attacks indicate that public concerns about terrorism and the …

National Identity Cards: Fourth And Fifth Amendment Issues, Daniel J. Steinbock

ExpressO

In the past two years there have been serious calls for a national identity system whose centerpiece would be some form of national identity card. Such a system is seen mainly as a tool against terrorists, but also as a useful response to illegal immigration, identity theft, and electoral fraud. Both proponents and opponents have noted the potential constitutional problems of such an identity system, but as yet there has been no published legal analysis of these questions. This article aims to fill that gap by analyzing the Fourth and Fifth Amendment issues in two major features of any likely …

The Coherence Of Orthodox Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence, Samuel C. Rickless

ExpressO

In the legal academy it is widely believed that the U.S. Supreme Court's orthodox (post-Katz, pre-Houghton) fourth amendment jurisprudence is theoretically incoherent. In particular, the Court has been criticized (on doctrinal and textual grounds) for accepting (i) Justice Harlan's definition of a "search" as an infringement of a subjective expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable, (ii) the Warrant Requirement and Probable Cause Requirement (according to which searches and seizures without a warrant or probable cause are presumptively unreasonable), and (iii) the Exclusionary Rule (according to which any evidence obtained in violation of a person’s fourth …