Law Commons^™

Keeping The Government's Hands Off Our Bodies: Mapping A Feminist Legal Theory Approach To Privacy In Cross-Gender Prison Searches, Teresa A. Miller

Journal Articles

The power of privacy is diminishing in the prison setting, and yet privacy is the legal theory prisoners rely upon most to resist searches by correctional officers. Incarcerated women in particular rely upon privacy to shield them from the kind of physical contact that male guards have been known to abuse. The kind of privacy that protects prisoners from searches by guards of the opposite sex derives from several sources, depending on the factual circumstances. Although some form of bodily privacy is embodied in the First, Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, prisoners challenging the constitutionality of cross-gender searches most commonly …

The Domestic Fourth Amendment Rights Of Undocumented Immigrants: On Guitterez And The Tort Law/Immigration Law Parallel, Victor C. Romero

Journal Articles

This Article is composed of three parts. Part I examines the problems raised by the Gutierrez I regime, including the collapse of the protective constitutional floor of immigrants' rights portended by that decision. Part II contends that the current plenary power approach to immigration and immigrants' rights issues would likely support, rather than dismantle, the Gutierrez I approach to undocumented immigrants' Fourth Amendment rights. Part III provides an alternative to the plenary power regime by drawing a parallel between domestic tort law for premises liability and immigrants' rights law. This part concludes by showing that Rowland and its progeny could …

Sex & Surveillance: Gender, Privacy & The Sexualization Of Power In Prison, Teresa A. Miller

Journal Articles

In prison, surveillance is power and power is sexualized. Sex and surveillance, therefore, are profoundly linked. Whereas numerous penal scholars from Bentham to Foucault have theorized the force inherent in the visual monitoring of prisoners, the sexualization of power and the relationship between sex and surveillance is more academically obscure. This article criticizes the failure of federal courts to consider the strong and complex relationship between sex and surveillance in analyzing the constitutionality of prison searches, specifically, cross-gender searches.

The analysis proceeds in four parts. Part One introduces the issues posed by sex and surveillance. Part Two describes the sexually …

Whatever Happened To The Fourth Amendment: Undocumented Immigrants' Rights After Ins V. Lopenz-Mendoza And United States V. Verdugo-Urquidez, Victor C. Romero

Journal Articles

This Note rejects the Court's approach to the Fourth Amendment in Lopez and Verdugo and attempts to redefine the boundaries of Fourth Amendment protections for undocumented immigrants. Part I examines the impact of the Lopez and Verdugo decisions upon undocumented immigrants' Fourth Amendment rights. Part II evaluates the arguments for extending Fourth Amendment protections to undocumented immigrants. Viewing the Fourth Amendment as a restriction on government intrusion, Part III examines the constitutional remedies available to undocumented immigrants. This part rejects the Lopez restrictions on the applicability of the exclusionary rule and concludes that the Fourth Amendment neither draws distinctions among …

The Constitutional Theory Of The Fourth Amendment, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

This Article will, in large part, present its thesis regarding fourth amendment doctrine by employing, as an illustration, a recent application of the current approach by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In United States v. Torres, the Seventh Circuit held video surveillance constitutional and further found that the judiciary had the authority to issue warrants for such a technique. Although welcomed by prosecutors and law enforcement officials, this decision highlights the absurdity of the current interpretation of the reasonableness clause. Moreover, Torres provides a vehicle through which this Article's historical interpretation can be brought into focus under the cold …

Present At The Creation? A Critical Guide To Weeks V. United States And Its Progeny, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

The Supreme Court in Weeks v. United States held that upon a pretrial motion for return of property illegally seized, a court must order restitution, even if government is thereby deprived of its use at a subsequent trial. Many have characterized the Court’s decision as being grounded on a principled rather than empirical basis and as supporting the principle of exclusion. This Article critically examines Weeks to gauge the validity of the principled basis theories that Justice Day arguably advances as defenses to the rule in his opinion. Although a principled rationale underlies the decision in Weeks, it does …

Some Observations On The Supreme Court's Use Of Property Concepts In Resolving Fourth Amendment Problems, Fernand N. Dutile

Journal Articles

There is a tendency among lawyers and laymen alike to consider "property rights" wholly distinct from "human rights", and to disparage the former in favor of the latter. To a large extent the tendency has been appropriate. One of the happiest chapters of recent times has been the effort to champion human values even at the expense of restricting the individual's use of his "own" property. The public accommodations section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the increase in aesthetic zoning, the extension of landlords' responsibilities with respect to leased properties and the expansion of consumer protection highlight the law's …