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Reasonableness With Teeth: The Future Of Fourth Amendment Reasonableness Analysis, Cynthia Lee
Reasonableness With Teeth: The Future Of Fourth Amendment Reasonableness Analysis, Cynthia Lee
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
This essay assesses the past, the present, and the future of Fourth Amendment reasonableness analysis. Part I focuses on the past. For much of the twentieth century, the Court embraced what is called the warrant preference view of the Fourth Amendment under which a search was considered reasonable if the government obtained a search warrant prior to the search or an exception to the warrant requirement applied. Part II focuses on the present. Even though it still treats as reasonable both searches conducted pursuant to a warrant and searches that fall within a well established exception to the warrant requirement, …
Package Bombs, Footlockers, And Laptops: What The Disappearing Container Doctrine Can Tell Us About The Fourth Amendment, Cynthia Lee
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
In the 1970s, the Court announced in a series of cases that police officers with probable cause to believe contraband or evidence of a crime is within a container must obtain a warrant from a neutral, detached judicial officer before searching that container. In requiring a search warrant, the Container Doctrine put portable containers on an almost equal footing with houses, which enjoy unquestioned Fourth Amendment protection.
This Article demonstrates that the Container Doctrine is fast becoming a historical relic as the Court expands the ways in which law enforcement officers can search containers without first obtaining a warrant issued …