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The Empty Promise Of The Fourth Amendment In The Family Regulation System, Anna Arons
The Empty Promise Of The Fourth Amendment In The Family Regulation System, Anna Arons
Faculty Publications
Each year, state agents search the homes of hundreds of thousands of families across the United States under the auspices of the family regulation system. Through these searches—required elements of investigations into allegations of child maltreatment in virtually every jurisdiction—state agents invade the home, the most protected space in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Accordingly, federal courts agree that the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement applies to family regulation home searches. But almost universally, the abstract recognition of Fourth Amendment protections runs up against a concrete expectation on the ground that state actors should have easy and expansive access to families’ homes. Legislatures …
Beyond Law Enforcement: Camreta V. Greene, Child Protection Investigations, And The Need To Reform The Fourth Amendment Special Needs Doctrine, Josh Gupta-Kagan
Beyond Law Enforcement: Camreta V. Greene, Child Protection Investigations, And The Need To Reform The Fourth Amendment Special Needs Doctrine, Josh Gupta-Kagan
Faculty Publications
The Fourth Amendment “special needs” doctrine distinguishes between searches and seizures that serve the “normal need for law enforcement” and those that serve some other “special need,” excusing non-law enforcement searches and seizures from the warrant and probable cause requirements. The Supreme Court has never justified drawing this bright line exclusively around law enforcement searches and seizures but not those that threaten important non-criminal constitutional rights.
Child protection investigations illustrate the problem: Millions of times each year, state child protection authorities search families’ homes, and seize children for interviews about alleged maltreatment. Only a minority of these investigations involve an …