Law Commons^™

Revitalizing Fourth Amendment Protections: A True Totality Of The Circumstances Test In § 1983 Probable Cause Determinations, Ryan Sullivan

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

The Article analyzes claims of police misconduct and false arrest, specifically addressing the issue of whether a police officer may ignore evidence of an affirmative defense, such as self-defense, when determining probable cause for an arrest. The inquiry most often arises in § 1983 civil claims for false arrest where the officer was aware of some evidence a crime had been committed, but was also aware of facts indicating the suspect had an affirmative defense to the crime observed. In extreme cases, the affirmative defense at issue is actually self-defense in response to the officer’s own unlawful conduct. As police …

Probable Cause And Reasonable Suspicion: Totality Tests Or Rigid Rules?, Kit Kinports

Journal Articles

This piece argues that the Supreme Court's April 2014 decision in Navarette v. Calfornia, like last Term's opinion in Florida v. Harris, deviates from longstanding Supreme Court precedent treating probable cause and reasonable suspicion as totality-of-the-circumstances tests. Instead, these two recent rulings essentially rely on rigid rules to define probable cause and reasonable suspicion. The article criticizes the Court for selectively endorsing bright-line tests that favor the prosecution, and argues that both decisions generate rules that oversimplify and therefore tend to be overinclusive.

Debate: The Constitutionality Of Stop-And-Frisk In New York City, David Rudovsky, Lawrence Rosenthal

All Faculty Scholarship

Stop-and-frisk, a crime prevention tactic that allows a police officer to stop a person based on “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity and frisk based on reasonable suspicion that the person is armed and dangerous, has been a contentious police practice since first approved by the Supreme Court in 1968. In Floyd v. City of New York, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that New York City’s stop-and-frisk practices violate both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Professors David Rudovsky and Lawrence Rosenthal debate the constitutionality of stop-and-frisk in New York City in light of …

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 …

Predictive Policing And Reasonable Suspicion, Andrew Ferguson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Predictive policing is a new law enforcement strategy to reduce crime by predicting criminal activity before it happens. Using sophisticated computer algorithms to forecast future events from past crime patterns, predictive policing has become the centerpiece of a new smart-policing strategy in several major cities. The initial results have been strikingly successful in reducing crime.This article addresses the Fourth Amendment consequences of this police innovation, analyzing the effect of predictive policing on the concept of reasonable suspicion. This article examines predictive policing in the context of the larger constitutional framework of “prediction” and the Fourth Amendment. Many aspects of current …

Disentangling Administrative Searches, Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

Everyone who has been screened at an international border, scanned by an airport metal detector, or drug tested for public employment has been subjected to an administrative search. Since September 11th, the government has increasingly invoked the administrative search exception to justify more checkpoints, unprecedented subway searches, and extensive wiretaps. As science and technology advance, the frequency and scope of administrative searches will only expand. Formulating the boundaries and requirements of administrative search doctrine is therefore a matter of great importance. Yet the rules governing administrative searches are notoriously unclear. This Article seeks to refocus attention on administrative searches and …

Probabilities In Probable Cause And Beyond: Statistical Versus Concrete Harms, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Grand Jury Discretion And Constitutional Design, Roger Fairfax

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The grand jury possesses an unqualified power to decline to indict - despite probable cause that alleged criminal conduct has occurred. A grand jury might exercise this power, for example, to disagree with the wisdom of a criminal law or its application to a particular defendant. A grand jury might also use its discretionary power to send a message of disapproval regarding biased or unwise prosecutorial decisions or inefficient allocation of law enforcement resources in the community. This ability to exercise discretion on bases beyond the sufficiency of the evidence has been characterized pejoratively as grand jury nullification. The dominant …

In The Trenches: Searches And The Misunderstood Common-Law History Of Suspicion And Probable Cause, Fabio Arcila

Scholarly Works

A detailed analysis of the common law during the Framers’ era, and of how it reflected the Fourth Amendment’s restrictions, shows that many 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 conclusion challenges the leading originalist account of the Fourth Amendment, which Professor Thomas Davies published in the Michigan Law Review in 1999.

Learned treatises in particular, and to a lesser extent a few case decisions, had articulated a judicial duty to monitor probable cause. But it is a mistake …

Standing Room Only: Why Fourth Amendment Exclusion And Standing Can No Longer Logically Coexist, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Reasonable Policeman: Police Intent In Criminal Procedure, Craig M. Bradley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Middle Class Fourth Amendment, Craig M. Bradley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Qualitative Dimension Of Fourth Amendment "Reasonableness", Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Supreme Court doctrine protects two seemingly distinct kinds of interests under the heading of privacy rights: one "substantive," the other "procedural." The Fourth Amendment guarantee against "unreasonable searches and seizures" has been generally interpreted to protect procedural privacy. Searches are typically defined as governmental inspections of activities and locations in which an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy from observation. In the typical case, this reasonable expectation of privacy may be breached only where the government has acquired a quantitatively substantial objective basis for believing that the search would uncover evidence of a crime. Substantive privacy rights have not …

Innocence, Privacy, And Targeting In Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Race And The Decision To Detain A Suspect, Sheri Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Recent Development, Constitutional Law: Protection Against Illegal Search And Seizure--Blackie's House Of Beef, Inc. V. Castillo, No. 79-1057 & 79-2358 (D.C. Cir. July 22, 1981), Stephen James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Searches Without Warrants, Jerold H. Israel

Book Chapters

My primary area of concentration today is the search made without a warrant. Studies indicate that 95 percent or more of all searches are without warrants. It is quite understandable, then, that most of the search-and-seizure litigation concerns the validity of searches without warrants.

Recent Decision Note, Thomas L. Shaffer

Journal Articles

Petitioner was arrested without a warrant by a federal narcotics agent. Sole justification for the arrest, pursuant to the Narcotics Control Act of 1956, was information from a paid informer of the Narcotics Bureau who had proved reliable during six months of association with arresting officers. The informer's description of the petitioner, including dress, baggage, and manner of walking, and his prediction of the petitioner's time of arrival at the point of arrest, were detailed and accurate. The arresting officers searched petitioner immediately after the arrest and seized narcotics and implements used in narcotics addiction. At trial petitioner moved to …