Law Commons^™

The Harms Of Heien: Pulling Back The Curtain On The Court's Search And Seizure Doctrine, Steven M. Goldstein -- Professor Of Law

Vanderbilt Law Review

In Heien v. North Carolina, the Supreme Court held that individuals can be seized on the basis of reasonable police mistakes of law. In an opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts, the eight-Justice majority held that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of “unreasonable” seizures does not bar legally mistaken seizures because “[t]o be reasonable is not to be perfect.” Concurring, Justice Kagan, joined by Justice Ginsburg, emphasized that judicial condonation of police mistakes of law should be “exceedingly rare.” In a solo dissent, Justice Sotomayor fairly “wonder[ed] why an innocent citizen should be made to shoulder the burden of being seized …

The Harms Of Heien: Pulling Back The Curtain On The Court's Search And Seizure Doctrin, Wayne A. Logan -- Professor

Vanderbilt Law Review

In Heien v. North Carolina, the Supreme Court held that individuals can be seized on the basis of reasonable police mistakes of law. In an opinion authored by Chief Justice Roberts, the eight-Justice majority held that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of "unreasonable" seizures does not bar legally mistaken seizures because "[t]o be reasonable is not to be perfect." Concurring, Justice Kagan, joined by Justice Ginsburg, emphasized that judicial condonation of police mistakes of law should be "exceedingly rare." In a solo dissent, Justice Sotomayor fairly "wonder[ed] why an innocent citizen should be made to shoulder the burden of being seized …

Breaking The Fourth's Wall: The Implications Of Remote Education For Students' Fourth Amendment Rights, Sallie Hatfield

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

As the COVID-19 pandemic forced both public K-12 and higher education institutions to transition to exclusively provide remote education, students’ homes and personal lives were exposed to the government like never before. Zoom classes and remote proctoring were suddenly the norm. Students and their families scrambled to create appropriate offices and classroom spaces in their homes, and many awkward and invasive scenarios soon followed. While many may have been harmlessly captured on camera, like classes that witness a student’s family eating lunch in the background or a dog on the couch, even these harmless instances have insidious implications for the …

Going Postal: Analyzing The Abuse Of Mail Covers Under The Fourth Amendment, Julie L. Rooney

Vanderbilt Law Review

Since at least the late 1800s, the United States government has regularly tracked the mail of many of its citizens. In 2014 alone, for example, the government recorded all data on the outside of the mail parcels of over 50,000 individuals via a surveillance initiative known as the mail covers program. In the current age of mass surveillance, this program-like all surveillance initiatives-has grown exponentially. Unbeknownst to most citizens, the government now photographs and records the exterior of each of the roughly 160 billion mail parcels delivered by the USPS every year. Still, despite its ability to allow governmental authorities …

Virtual Blinds: Finding Online Privacy In Offline Precedents, Allyson W. Haynes

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

A person in a building shows a desire for privacy by pulling her blinds shut or closing her curtains. Otherwise, she cannot complain when her neighbor sees her undressing from the window, or when a policeman looks up from the street and sees her marijuana plants. In the online context, can we find an analogy to these privacy blinds? Or is the window legally bare because of the nature of the Internet?

This Article argues that by analyzing the privacy given to communications in the offline context, and in particular, by analyzing case law recognizing privacy in an otherwise public …

Along For The Ride: Gps And The Fourth Amendment, Stephen A. Josey

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

With the advent of new technologies, the line as to where the Fourth Amendment forbids certain police behavior and when it does not has become increasingly blurred. Recently, the issue of whether police may use Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking devices to track individuals for prolonged periods of time without first securing a search warrant has crept its way into the limelight. The various circuits have arrived at different conclusions, and the question has now found its way onto the US Supreme Court's docket. After analyzing and weighing both Supreme Court case law and public policy considerations, this Note concludes …

Cloudy Privacy Protections: Why The Stored Communications Act Fails To Protect The Privacy Of Communications Stored In The Cloud, Ilana R. Kattan

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The advent of new communications technologies has generated debate over the applicability of the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement to communications sent through, and stored in, technologies not anticipated by the Framers. In 1986, Congress responded to perceived gaps in the protections of the warrant requirement as applied to newer technologies, such as email, by passing the Stored Communications Act (SCA). As originally enacted, the SCA attempted to balance the interests of law enforcement against individual privacy rights by dictating the mechanisms by which the government could compel a particular service provider to disclose communications stored on behalf of its customers. …

Applying Pen Register And Trap And Trace Devices To Internet Communications, Rich Haglund

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This note will explain how the different surveillance methods work: wire taps, pen register and trap and trace devices. It will outline the development of case law and legislation defining what constitutes unlawful searches and seizures involving electronic communications. After explaining how email and internet addresses are collected (and whether the FBI's tool for collection works within the bounds set by the law), this note will discuss the provisions of the Patriot Act that regulate collection of that information. This note will show, using the application of pen register and trap and trace devices to the Internet as an example, …

Press One For Warrant: Reinventing The Fourth Amendment's Search Warrant Requirement Through Electronic Procedures, Justin H. Smith

Vanderbilt Law Review

Numerous rulings by the Supreme Court have confirmed the long-held assertion that the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement is a "centerpiece for the law of search and seizure, and that prescreening by neutral and detached magistrates is [at] the heart of citizens' protection against police overreaching." On September 21, 1994, however, these assertions proved inaccurate and painfully hollow for Betty Ingram, a fifty-three-year-old diabetic who awoke to the sound of armed police officers charging through her front door. The officers, who were searching for a suspect involved in a buy- and-bust operation, had neither obtained a search warrant nor knocked and …

Urine Trouble! Extending Constitutionality To Mandatory Suspicionless Drug Testing Of Students In Extracurricular Activities, James M. Mccray

Vanderbilt Law Review

The United States makes clear its reverence for education by demanding that its children attend school.' What is less clear, how- ever, is the nation's dedication to each student's constitutional rights. From the earliest days of the common law, public school students have lacked fundamental rights, even the right of liberty in its narrowest sense.' Although public students retain certain constitutional rights,' the public school system maintains an elevated power over its students." This power is like that of a parent,' including the duty to "inculcate the habits and manners of civility" into its students.' The public school's control over …

The Continuing Evolution Of Criminal Constitutional Law In State Courts, S. Carran Daughtrey

Vanderbilt Law Review

Although early state constitutions were important and ambitious documents for their time, the development of state constitutional law stagnated after the drafting and adoption of the federal constitution., As the doctrine of federalism has resurfaced, however, states have begun to turn to their constitutions to grant more protection for their citizens. The states' criminal constitutional laws have changed significantly and continue to evolve today.

In the 1960s, the Warren Court expanded basic protections for criminal defendants by finding that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. The Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual …

Anticipatory Search Warrants: The Supreme Court's Opportunity To Reexamine The Framework Of The Fourth Amendment, David P. Mitchell

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures," and provides that "no War-rants shall issue, but upon probable cause."' Although its language is relatively clear, the application of the Fourth Amendment has created more controversy than the application of perhaps any other constitutional amendment.' Given the questions raised by a police-endorsed practice of anticipatory search warrants,' the search and seizure debate is far from over.

An anticipatory search warrant is a warrant based on a showing of probable cause that particular evidence of a crime will exist at a specific location in the future. Challenges …

Tapping The State Court Resource, Ann Althouse

Vanderbilt Law Review

Supreme Court opinions about federal jurisdiction usually feature painstaking analysis of the text of statutes and constitutional clauses and the intentions of those who authored them, or they are based on long-standing traditions of equity jurisprudence. But, as the Court's many divided decisions attest, these materials are scarcely clear enough to determine all outcomes. Thus, the Justices often seem to weigh various interests when they draw the lines around federal jurisdiction. The Court sometimes openly acknowledges this interest weighing, referring to "state interests" and "federal interests."

Justice Stevens has taken exception to this process. He has ob- served that much …

Aids, Rape, And The Fourth Amendment: Schemes For Mandatory Aids Testing Of Sex Offenders, Paul H. Macdonald

Vanderbilt Law Review

Few subjects are as emotionally troubling as AIDS' and rape. The latter, of course, has plagued society throughout human history, but AIDS only recently has imposed itself upon our social and medical consciousness. Ever since AIDS became a familiar sight in the headlines nearly ten years ago, society has reacted to it with a mixture of anxiety, confusion, and despair. One consequence of the new societal awareness is the increased hesitancy with which individuals approach intimate contact. When intimate contact is involuntary as in the case of rape, fear of exposure to the disease is especially pronounced. Society,however, seems ill-prepared …

Case Digest, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

APPLICATION OF UNITED STATES LAW TO A FOREIGN SEAMAN'S SUIT DEPENDS UPON THE SUBSTANTIALITY OF THE FOREIGN DEFENDANT'S CONTACTS WITH THE UNITED STATES--Szumlicz v. Norwegian America Line, Inc., 698 F.2d 1192 (11th Cir. 1983).

RECOVERY PURSUANT TO THE FISHERMEN'S PROTECTIVE ACT FOR LOSSES RESULTING FROM SEIZURE OF VESSLS FISHING IN DISPUTED WATERS Is NOT LIMITED TO CITIZENS AND RESIDENT ALIENS OF THE UNITED STATES-CrUZ V. Zapata Ocean Resources, Inc., 695 F.2d 428 (9th Cir. 1982).

UNITED STATES SUPPORT OF CANADIAN SEARCH OF UNITED STATES VESSEL ON THE HIGH SEAS DID NOT VIOLATE DEFENDANT'S FOURTH AMENDMENT RIGHTS--United States v. Hensel, 699 …

The Fourth Amendment And The "Legitimate Expectation Of Privacy", Gerald G. Ashdown

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article does not endeavor to engage in a debate over the efficacy or deterrent effect of the exclusionary rule.' Nevertheless, it should be noted that these decisions appear questionable. It seems clear that a refusal to apply the rule in cases of particular fourth amendment transgressions will produce no incremental deterrence of unlawful police conduct, and inconsistent application of the rule arguably could diminish whatever deterrent value does exist.Therefore, if deterrence is viewed as the primary--if not only-function of the exclusionary rule, that goal should be promoted through thorough and consistent application of the rule.The Supreme Court, however, has …

Limiting The Application Of The Exclusionary Rule: The Good Faith Exception, Meredith B. Brinegar

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Supreme Court does not believe that the deterrent value of the exclusionary rule is sufficiently well established to merit broadening the rule's scope. The Court nonetheless has not yet carved out a blanket exception to the rule based solely on a lack of deterrent value. The Fifth Circuit decided in Williams that the exclusionary rule is not an effective deterrent in the good faith mistake or technical violations cases. It therefore removed these fourth amendment violations from exclusionary rule doctrine. Although the Fifth Circuit correctly reasoned that the Supreme Court would support the exception in the case of police …

Case Digest, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Definition of Seaman under the Jones Act Need Not be Restricted to Person Assigned to Only One Vessel

Fourth Amendment Does Not Bar Warrantless Fishing Vessel Searches Authorized by the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 to Protect Fisheries in the Conservation Zone

Properly Extradited Fugitive Not Entitled to Judicial Hearing Challenging Enlargement of Original Warrant of Surrender

Visa Numbers Wrongfully Charged Against Western Hemisphere Quotas are Reissued According to an Historical Approach Rather than Chronological Order

Payment of Irrevocable Letter of Credit May Not be Enjoined on Grounds of Instability of Foreign Governments

Expropriation of a Contractual Right …