Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Law
A World Of Difference? Law Enforcement, Genetic Data, And The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin, J. W. Hazel
A World Of Difference? Law Enforcement, Genetic Data, And The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin, J. W. Hazel
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Law enforcement agencies are increasingly turning to genetic databases as a way of solving crime, either through requesting the DNA profile of an identified suspect from a database or, more commonly, by matching crime scene DNA with DNA profiles in a database in an attempt to identify a suspect or a family member of a suspect. Neither of these efforts implicates the Fourth Amendment, because the Supreme Court has held that a Fourth Amendment "search" does not occur unless police infringe "expectations of privacy society is prepared to recognize as reasonable" and has construed that phrase narrowly, without reference to …
Transaction Surveillance By The Government, Christopher Slobogin
Transaction Surveillance By The Government, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This symposium article is the second of two on regulation of government efforts to obtain recorded information for criminal prosecutions. More specifically, it explores the scope and regulation of "transaction surveillance," which it defines as government attempts to access already existing records, either physically or through data banks, and government efforts to obtain, in real-time or otherwise, "catalogic data" (the identifying signals of a transaction, such as the address of an email recipient). Transaction surveillance is a potent way of discovering and making inferences about a person's activities, character and identity. Yet, despite a bewildering array of statutorily created authorization …
The Poverty Exception To The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin
The Poverty Exception To The Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This essay, written for the Sixth Annual LatCrit conference, explores the subterranean motifs of current rules regulating searches and seizures by the police. More specifically, it investigates whether and to what extent alienage, race and poverty influence the warrant and individualized suspicion rules purportedly governing police investigation. The essay begins by showing that, contrary to the assertion of other conference participants, Supreme Court doctrine has not created a "Mexican exception" to the Fourth Amendment (as distinguished from an "illegal alien" exception, which does seem to exist). The main focus of the article, however, is an examination of whether the Court's …
Peeping Techno-Toms And The Fourth Amendment: Seeing Through Kyllo's Rules Governing Technological Surveillance, Christopher Slobogin
Peeping Techno-Toms And The Fourth Amendment: Seeing Through Kyllo's Rules Governing Technological Surveillance, Christopher Slobogin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This article suggests that the Supreme Court's decision in Kyllo v. United States may not be as protective of the home as it first appears. Kyllo held that use of a thermal imager to detect heat sources inside the home is a fourth amendment search, requiring a warrant and probable cause. But it also held that use of technology that is in "general public use" or that only discovers what a naked eye observer could see from a public vantage point is not a search, even when the location viewed is the interior of the home. This article shows that …
World Without A Fourth Amendment, Christopher Slobogin
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 …