Law Commons^™

“Bang!”: Shotspotter Gunshot Detection Technology, Predictive Policing, And Measuring Terry’S Reach, Harvey Gee

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

ShotSpotter technology is a rapid identification and response system used in ninety American cities that is designed to detect gunshots and dispatch police. ShotSpotter is one of many powerful surveillance tools used by local police departments to purportedly help fight crime, but they often do so at the expense of infringing upon privacy rights and civil liberties. This Article expands the conversation about ShotSpotter technology considerably by examining the adjacent Fourth Amendment issues emanating from its use. For example, law enforcement increasingly relies on ShotSpotter to create reasonable suspicion where it does not exist. In practice, the use of ShotSpotter …

Putting Together The Pieces: The Mosaic Theory And Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence Since Carpenter, Ben Vanston

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Facebook, Crime Prevention, And The Scope Of The Private Search Post-Carpenter, Connor M. Correll

Georgia Law Review

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects people “against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The private search doctrine provides a notable exception to the Fourth Amendment, providing that the government may reconstruct a search previously performed by a private party without first obtaining a warrant. The U.S. Supreme Court developed the private search doctrine prior to the advent of the internet; however, modern technology has changed the way that individuals live. What was once done entirely in private is now done alongside ever-present third parties, such as cell phones and virtual assistants.

Facebook and other social media sites complicate Fourth …

Alexa Hears With Her Little Ears—But Does She Have The Privilege?, Lauren Chlouber Howell

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Geofence Warrants: An Attack On The Fourth Amendment, Golden Gate University School Of Law

GGU Law Review Blog

Imagine a world where a king could compel the search of anybody, anywhere, and for anything. This world inspired James Madison to draft the Fourth Amendment, and is also a world we are returning to. The Fourth Amendment was created to protect against indiscriminate general warrants used in Georgian England, which subjected colonists to unrestricted invasions of privacy. Today, these general warrants come with a new name and in a new form: geofence warrants. Geofence warrants permit law enforcement to obtain the location data of every person that was in a specific geographic area where a crime occurred, in an …

Revising Reasonableness In The Cloud, Ian Walsh

Washington Law Review

Save everything—just in case––and search for it later. This is a modern mantra fueled by the ubiquity of smartphones, laptops, tablets, and free or low-cost data storage that leads users to store massive amounts of data in the cloud. But when users trust third-party cloud storage providers with private communications, they also surrender Fourth Amendment constitutional certainty. Existing statutory safeguards for these communications are lower than Fourth Amendment warrant and probable cause standards; this permits the government to seize large quantities of users’ private communications stored in the cloud with only minimal justification. Due to the revealing nature of such …

Limited Privacy In “Pings:” Why Law Enforcement’S Use Of Cell-Site Simulators Does Not Categorically Violate The Fourth Amendment, Lara M. Mcmahon

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Note proposes four factors courts should consider when asked to determine whether law enforcement’s use of a cell-site simulator constituted a Fourth Amendment search. The first asks courts to consider whether the cell-site simulator surveillance infringed on a constitutionally protected area, such as the home. The second asks courts to consider the duration of the cell-site simulator surveillance. The third asks courts to consider whether the cell-site simulator surveillance was conducted actively or passively. The fourth asks courts to focus on the nature and depth of the information obtained as a result of the cell-site simulator surveillance. If, after …

State V. Pinkham: Erosion Of Meaningful Forth Amendment Protection For Vehicle Stops In Maine?, Roger M. Clement Jr.

Maine Law Review

In State v. Pinkham, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, held that a police officer's stop of a motorist to inquire and advise about the motorist's improper-but not illegal-lane usage did not necessarily violate the Fourth Amendment's proscription against unreasonable seizures. The Pinkham decision is the first time that the Law Court has validated the stop of a moving vehicle in the absence of either a suspected violation of law or an imminent, ongoing threat to highway safety.
This Note considers whether the Law Court was correct in sustaining the police officer's stop of Ronald Pinkham. …

Please Stop: The Law Court's Recent Roadblock Decisions, Jonathan A. Block

Maine Law Review

Police checkpoints or “roadblocks” have become an increasingly utilized law enforcement tool. At best, these checkpoints result in only a minor inconvenience to motorists. When abused, however, roadblocks have the potential for invidious invasions of privacy and personal freedom. Roadblocks are designed to deter, and to a lesser extent detect, criminal activity by stopping everyone—both the guilty and the law-abiding—for a brief inspection, thereby impinging to some degree on one's freedom of travel, privacy, and “right to be let alone.” Such “seizures” must be “reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment in order to survive constitutional challenge. The major difference between roadblocks …

Hey Siri, How Does The Judicial System Treat Searches And Seizures Of Electronic Devices? Here’S What I Found, Sandy Davis

Mercer Law Review

In a world where access to an expansive array of information is open and freely available from our back pockets, entrenched legal notions such as privacy and property come to the fore. More to the point, the Fourth Amendment test for balancing government and possessory interests plays an ever-expanding role in shaping how government agencies search and seize our electronic devices—or more precisely, our “virtual homes.”

When the government searches and seizes personal property, it must do so within the scope of Fourth Amendment reasonableness. When that personal property is an electronic device, such a search and seizure must be …

In General Public Use: An Unnecessary Test In Fourth Amendment Searches Using Advanced Sensing Technology, Mike Petridis

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cops And Cars: How The Automobile Drove Fourth Amendment Law, Tracey Maclin

Faculty Scholarship

This is an essay on Professor Sarah A. Seo’s new book, Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom (Harvard Univ. Press 2019). I focus on Professor Seo’s analysis of Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925) and Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160 (1949). Carroll is important not only because it was the Court’s first car case. Understanding Carroll (and Brinegar, which solidified and expanded Carroll’s holding) is essential because, nearly one hundred years later, its logic continues to direct how the modern Court resolves Fourth Amendment claims of motorists. Put simply, a majority of today’s …

The Effect Of Legislation On Fourth Amendment Protection, Orin S. Kerr

Orin Kerr

When judges interpret the Fourth Amendment, and privacy legislation regulates the government’s conduct, should the legislation have an effect on the Fourth Amendment? Courts are split three ways. Some courts argue that legislation provides the informed judgment of a coequal branch that should influence the Fourth Amendment. Some courts contend that the presence of legislation should displace Fourth Amendment protection to prevent constitutional rules from interfering with the legislature’s handiwork. Finally, some courts treat legislation and the Fourth Amendment as independent and contend that the legislation should have no effect. This Article argues that courts should favor interpreting the Fourth …

Cops And Cars: How The Automobile Drove Fourth Amendment Law, Tracey Maclin

UF Law Faculty Publications

This is an essay on Professor Sarah A. Seo’s new book, Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom (Harvard Univ. Press 2019). I focus on Professor Seo’s analysis of Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925) and Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160 (1949). Carroll is important not only because it was the Court’s first car case. Understanding Carroll (and Brinegar, which solidified and expanded Carroll’s holding) is essential because, nearly one hundred years later, its logic continues to direct how the modern Court resolves Fourth Amendment claims of motorists. Put simply, a majority of today’s …

Self Incrimination And Cryptographic Keys, Gregory S. Sergienko

Greg Sergienko

Modern cryptography can make it virtually impossible to decipher documents without the cryptographic key thus making the availability of the contents of those documents depend on the availability of the key. This article examines the Fourth and Fifth Amendments' protection against the compulsory production of the key and the scope of the Fifth Amendment immunity against compelled production. After analyzing these questions using prevailing Fourth and Fifth Amendment jurisprudence, I shall describe the advantages of a privacy-based approach in practical and constitutional terms. [excerpt]

Standing Under State Search And Seizure Provision: Why The Minnesota Supreme Court Should Have Rejected The Federal Standards And Instead Invoked Greater Protection Under Its Own Constitution In State V. Carter, Rebecca C. Garrett

Maine Law Review

In State v. Carter, the Minnesota Supreme Court considered whether a criminal defendant had “standing” to challenge an alleged search under the Fourth Amendment and Article 1, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution. The defendant moved to suppress evidence obtained by a police officer who had peered in the window of an apartment where the defendant was participating in a drug-packaging operation with the apartment's leaseholder. A divided court held that the defendant had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the apartment. Therefore, the defendant had standing to challenge the legality of the police officer's observations pursuant to the Fourth …

“You’Re Not Gonna Reach My Telephone”— The Resurgence Of The Fourth Amendment’S Particularity Requirement, Tammie Beassie Banko

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Martin Luther King Jr. And Pretext Stops (And Arrests): Reflections On How Far We Have Not Come Fifty Years Later, Tracey Maclin, Maria Savarese

UF Law Faculty Publications

By January, 1956, the Montgomery Bus boycott was in full-swing. Black citizens in Montgomery, Alabama were refusing to ride the city’s private buses to protest racially segregated seating. On the afternoon of January 26, 1956, twenty-seven-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. had finished his day of work at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. On his drive home, King stopped his vehicle to offer a ride to a group of bus boycotters standing at a downtown car-pool location. After the boycotters entered King’s car, two motorcycle policemen pulled-in behind King’s vehicle. While everyone in King’s car tried to remain calm, …

Does The End Justify The Means? The Clumsy And Circuitous Logic Of Blood Test Admissibility In Criminal Prosecutions In State V. Cormier, Kyle T. Macdonald

Maine Law Review

In State v. Cormier, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, was asked to determine whether a Maine statute requiring law enforcement officers to test the blood of all drivers for intoxicants following a fatal motor vehicle collision violates the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution when the operation of the statute allows for the admission of those blood test results in a future criminal trial of the driver. In determining that the procedures of title 29-A, section 2522 of the Maine Revised Statutes are not violative of the Fourth Amendment, the Law Court effectively confirmed …

Digital Effects: The Fourth Amendment And Computer Searches Warrants, Ash Moore

Oklahoma Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Utah V. Strieff: The Gratuitous Expansion Of The Attenuation Doctrine, Courtney Watkins

Maryland Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Upholding Citizens’ Privacy In The Use Of Stingray Technology: Is New York Behind?, Samantha Hazen

Pace Law Review

This Comment will argue that New York should follow the federal agencies’ and states’ leads by imposing a warrant requirement supported by probable cause on local and state agencies that wish to use Stingray technology in their investigations. The first section will explore Stingray technology and how it works. The second section will frame the issue and describe New York’s current standard. The third section will discuss the judicial response to the issue and how New York courts seem to place the burden of upholding privacy on the citizen, instead of the government. The third section will also discuss a …

Constitutional Law—Fourth Amendment Search And Seizure—We've Got Ourselves In A Pickle: The Supreme Court Of Arkansas's Recent Expansion Of Fourht Amendment Rights May Have Unintended Consequences. Pickle V. State, 2015 Ark. 286, 466 S.W. 3d 410, Ben Honaker

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

More Like Blood: State V. Thompson, Joshua L. Weichsel

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Legislation On Fourth Amendment Protection, Orin S. Kerr

Michigan Law Review

When judges interpret the Fourth Amendment, and privacy legislation regulates the government’s conduct, should the legislation have an effect on the Fourth Amendment? Courts are split three ways. Some courts argue that legislation provides the informed judgment of a coequal branch that should influence the Fourth Amendment. Some courts contend that the presence of legislation should displace Fourth Amendment protection to prevent constitutional rules from interfering with the legislature’s handiwork. Finally, some courts treat legislation and the Fourth Amendment as independent and contend that the legislation should have no effect. This Article argues that courts should favor interpreting the Fourth …

The 2016 Amendments To Criminal Rule 41: National Search Warrants To Seize Cyberspace, “Particularly” Speaking, Devin M. Adams

Law Student Publications

George Orwell's dystopia, with the ever-watchful Big Brother, has seemingly become a reality with the recently passed amendments to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Rule 41, governing searches and seizures, now permits magistrate judges to authorize agents- under a single warrant- to "remotely access," and simultaneously search, copy and seize information from an infinite number of unknown electronic devices in multiple districts anywhere in the country. The unlimited jurisdiction provision is triggered when a device's location is obscured through "technological means," or if agents are investigating computer crimes in five or more districts- regardless of whether …

Justice Scalia’S Originalism And Formalism: The Rule Of Criminal Law As A Law Of Rules, Stephanos Bibas

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Carey Law

Far too many reporters and pundits collapse law into politics, assuming that the left–right divide between Democratic and Republican appointees neatly explains politically liberal versus politically conservative outcomes at the Supreme Court. The late Justice Antonin Scalia defied such caricatures. His consistent judicial philosophy made him the leading exponent of originalism, textualism, and formalism in American law, and over the course of his three decades on the Court, he changed the terms of judicial debate. Now, as a result, supporters and critics alike start with the plain meaning of the statutory or constitutional text rather than loose appeals to legislative …

Cell Phone Searches After Riley: Establishing Probable Cause And Applying Search Warrant Exceptions, Erica L. Danielsen

Pace Law Review

Part I of this note discusses the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizures and its probable cause requirement. The Fourth Amendment’s text remains the same since its enactment. However, interpretation of the Fourth Amendment continues to evolve in order to stay current with society. Interpretation of the Fourth Amendment also varies based on state constitutional law since states can provide its citizens with greater protection than the United States Constitution. This is why the United States Supreme Court, federal district courts, and state courts have all undergone thorough Fourth Amendment analyses when applying the true meaning of the …

On The 'Considered Analysis' Of Collecting Dna Before Conviction, David H. Kaye

David Kaye

For nearly a decade, DNA-on-arrest laws eluded scrutiny in the courts. For another five years, they withstood a gathering storm of constitutional challenges. In Maryland v. King, however, Maryland's highest court reasoned that usually fingerprints provide everything police need to establish the true identity of an individual before trial and that the state's interest in finding the perpetrators of crimes by trawling databases of DNA profiles is too "generalized" to support "a warrantless, suspicionless search." The U.S. Supreme Court reacted forcefully. Chief Justice Roberts stayed the Maryland judgment, writing that "given the considered analysis of courts on the other side …

Dna Database Trawls And The Definition Of A Search In Boroian V. Mueller, David H. Kaye

David Kaye

As a general matter, once the government acquires information from a permissible search or seizure, it can use this information in later criminal investigations. Courts have applied this simple rule to uphold the indefinite reuse of DNA samples acquired from convicted offenders. This essay describes the First Circuit Court of Appeals’ reliance on the rule in rejecting a convicted offender’s claim that his DNA sample and profile had to be removed from the federal DNA databank after he completed his sentence. Acknowledging that the rule permitting reuse should not be applied mechanically, I argue that the rule's application to DNA …