Law Commons^™

Forensic Border Searches After Carpenter Require Probable Cause And A Warrant, Christopher I. Pryby

Michigan Law Review

Under the border search doctrine, courts have upheld the federal government's practice of searching people and their possessions upon entry into or exit from the United States, without any requirement of suspicion, as reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Since the advent of electronic devices with large storage capacities, courts have grappled with whether this definition of reasonableness continues to apply. So far, courts have consistently characterized “nonforensic” border inspections of electronic devices (for example, paging through photos on a phone) as “routine” searches that, like inspecting luggage brought across international lines, require no suspicion. But there is a circuit split …

The Case For Rational Basis Review Of General Suspicionless Searches And Seizures, Richard C. Worf

Touro Law Review

This article examines the constitutional status of suspicionless searches and seizures of groups- an exceedingly important question in the age of terror, and a subject recently brought back to the forefront by the searches of subway passengers in New York City. It draws on process theory to argue that when a legislature has authorized a group search or seizure, courts should generally apply rational basis review.

First, other areas of constitutional doctrine exhibit deep trust in the power of groups to protect their interests in political process, and there is no reason why fourth amendment doctrine should not do the …

Bringing Clarity To Administrative Search Doctrine: Distinguishing Dragnets From Special Subpopulation Searches, Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

Anyone who has been stopped at a sobriety checkpoint, screened at an international border, scanned by a metal detector at an airport or government building, or drug tested for public employment has been subjected to an administrative search or seizure. Searches of public school students, government employees, and probationers are characterized as administrative, as are business inspections and-increasingly-wiretaps and other searches used in the gathering of national security intelligence. In other words, the government conducts thousands of administrative searches every day. None of these searches requires either probable cause or a search warrant. Instead, courts evaluating administrative searches need only …

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 …

Fourth Amendment Accommodations: (Un)Compelling Public Needs, Balancing Acts, And The Fiction Of Consent, Guy-Uriel E. Charles

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The problems of public housing-including crime, drugs, and gun violence- have received an enormous amount of national attention. Much attention has also focused on warrantless searches and consent searches as solutions to these problems. This Note addresses the constitutionality of these proposals and asserts that if the Supreme Court's current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is taken to its logical extremes, warrantless searches in public housing can be found constitutional. The author argues, however, that such an interpretation fails to strike the proper balance between public need and privacy in the public housing context. The Note concludes by proposing alternative consent-based regimes …

Search & Seizure

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Fourth Amendment: The Right Of The People To Be Secure In Their Persons, Homes, Papers, And Effects, Yale Kamisar

Book Chapters

Three quarters of a century ago, the Supreme Court expressed some thoughts on constitutional interpretation that bear repeating today (Weems v. United States):

Time works changes, brings into existence new conditions and purposes. Therefore, a principle to be vital must be capable of wider application than the mischief which gave it birth. This is particularly true of constitutions .... [In interpreting] a constitution, therefore, our contemplation cannot be only of what has been but what may be. Under any other rule a constitution would indeed be as easyof application as it would be deficient in efficacy and power.

The Fourth …

Administrative Search And Seizure Whither The Warrant, Jack M. Kress, Carole D. Iannelli

Villanova Law Review

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.

Rationalizing Administrative Searches, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

At the outset, this Note examines the major decisions concerning administrative searches. Specifically, it traces the development of a warrant requirement and of the corresponding lower standard of probable cause announced in the Camara and See decisions. Subsequent modifications of that seemingly absolute rule are then analyzed. To develop a framework for evaluating administrative search cases, Section II groups those principal Supreme Court cases, along with pertinent lower court opinions, into three tiers of fourth amendment protection: administrative searches that require a warrant based on a traditional criminal standard of probable cause; administrative searches that require a warrant based on …

The Constitutionality Of Airport Searches, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note will discuss airport searches in comparison to several situations in which the courts have found that the requirements of the fourth amendment do not apply or are satisfied even in the absence of a warrant: border searches, administrative searches, stop-and-frisk searches, and searches under express or implied consent. None of these are perfectly analogous to the present airport procedures. Therefore, if airport searches are to be allowed, either the procedures must be modified to fit the established exceptions, or a new exception to the warrant requirement of the fourth amendment must be created.