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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 …

Reworking The Warrant Requirement: Resuscitating The Fourth Amendment, Phyllis T. Bookspan

Vanderbilt Law Review

Ninety-three years ago, in response to a newspaper account, Mark Twain wrote: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." While it may be premature to sound the death knell for the fourth amendment, it is no exaggeration to suggest that unless drastic action is taken to remedy the destructive erosion of the fourth amendment, it may as well be buried.

Current search and seizure doctrine is inconsistent and incoherent.' No one, including the police who are to abide by it, judges who apply it, or the people who are protected by it, has any meaningful sense of what the …

World Without A Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The subject of this Article is suggested by a single question: How would we regulate searches and seizures if the Fourth Amendment did not exist? This question is a useful one to ask even leaving aside the possibility of amending the amendment. Starting on a blank slate, as it were, should free us from current preconceptions about the law of search and seizure, ingrained after years of analyzing current dogma. Viewed from this fresh perspective, we might gain a better understanding of the values at stake when the state seeks to obtain evidence or detain suspects. This new understanding in …