Law Commons^™

Knowledge And Fourth Amendment Privacy, Matthew Tokson

Northwestern University Law Review

This Article examines the central role that knowledge plays in determining the Fourth Amendment’s scope. What people know about surveillance practices or new technologies often shapes the “reasonable expectations of privacy” that define the Fourth Amendment’s boundaries. From early decisions dealing with automobile searches to recent cases involving advanced information technologies, courts have relied on assessments of knowledge in a wide variety of Fourth Amendment contexts. Yet the analysis of knowledge in Fourth Amendment law is rarely if ever studied on its own.

This Article fills that gap. It starts by identifying the characteristics of Fourth Amendment knowledge. It finds, …

Policing Criminal Justice Data, Wayne A. Logan, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Further Punishing The Wrongfully Accused: Manuel V. City Of Joliet, The Fourth Amendment, And Malicious Prosecution, James R. Holley

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Manuel v. City of Joliet is before the Supreme Court to determine whether detention before trial without probable cause is a violation of the Fourth Amendment, or whether it is merely a violation of the Due Process Clause. Every circuit except the Seventh Circuit treats this type of detention as being a violation of the Fourth Amendment; only the Seventh Circuit considers this question under the Due Process Clause. This commentary argues that the Supreme Court should look to its precedent, which clearly treats pretrial detention without probable cause as being a Fourth Amendment issue, and reverse the Seventh Circuit. …

Beware The Friends You Keep And The Places You Sleep: The Fourth Amendments Limited Protection Over Visitors And Their Belongings, Alysha C. Preston

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note concludes that the Arizona Supreme Court correctly applied the possession test and strongly urges the Supreme Court to address the issue and follow in Arizona’s footsteps. The possession test not only provides the best guidance for both officers and courts, but also provides the most precision and clarity. More importantly, this approach aligns with current Supreme Court case law and conforms to established Fourth Amendment principles. Holding otherwise would gravely undermine policy, disregard current precedents, and undervalue the sole purpose for the Fourth Amendment’s existence: to protect one’s reasonable expectation of privacy. Part I examines the scope …

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

All Faculty Scholarship

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 …

Newsroom: Goldstein On Drug Databases 6-27-2016, Sheri Qualters, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

“Criminal Records” - A Comparative Approach, Sigmund A. Cohn

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Utah V. Strieff And The Future Of The Exceptions To The Exclusionary Rule, Zack Gong

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

In the recent case State v. Strieff, the Supreme Court of Utah held that police’s discovery of a lawful outstanding warrant during an unlawful investigatory stop cannot save the evidence obtained during that arrest from suppression under the attenuation doctrine. To reach that decision, the court reasoned that the inevitable discovery doctrine, instead of the attenuation doctrine, is appropriate for this situation. However, the court failed to address whether the inevitable discovery doctrine can ultimately save the evidence from suppression.

The theoretical foundation of how the Fourth Amendment guaranty gives rise to the exclusionary rule has never been steadfast; …

Fourth Amendment Remedies As Rights: The Warrant Requirement, David Gray

David C. Gray

The constitutional status of the warrant requirement is hotly debated. Critics argue that neither the text nor history of the Fourth Amendment support a warrant requirement. Also questioned is the warrant requirement’s ability to protect Fourth Amendment interests. Perhaps in response to these concerns, the Court has steadily degraded the warrant requirement through a series of widening exceptions. The result is an unsatisfying jurisprudence that fails on both conceptual and practical grounds.

These debates have gained new salience with the emergence of modern surveillance technologies such as stingrays, GPS tracking, drones, and Big Data. Although a majority of the Court …

Supreme Court, New York County, Kellogg V. Travis, Donna A. Napolitano

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court, Kings County, People V. Ortiz, Robert Kronenberg

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court, Kings County, People V. Butler, Robert B. Kronenberg

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Court Of Appeals, People V. Robinson, Jonathan Janofsky

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court's Quiet Expansion Of Qualified Immunity, Kit Kinports

Kit Kinports

This Essay discusses the Supreme Court’s tendency in recent opinions to covertly expand the reach of the qualified immunity defense available to public officials in § 1983 civil rights suits. In particular, the Essay points out that the Court, often in per curiam rulings, has described qualified immunity in increasingly broad terms and has qualified and retreated from its precedents, without offering any explanation or even acknowledging that it is deviating from past practice.In making this claim, I focus on three specific issues: the manner in which the Court characterizes the standard governing the qualified immunity defense; the question whether …

Newsroom: A True Original(Ist) 02-15-2016, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Video Evidence And Summary Judgment: The Procedure Of Scott V. Harris, Howard Wasserman

Howard M Wasserman

In Scott v. Harris (2007), the Supreme Court granted summary judgment on a Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim brought by a motorist injured when a pursuing law-enforcement officer terminated a high-speed pursuit by bumping the plaintiff's car. The Court relied almost exclusively on a video of the chase captured from the officer's dash-mounted camera and disregarded witness testimony that contradicted the video. In granting summary judgment in this circumstance, the Court fell sway to the myth of video evidence as able to speak for itself, as an objective, unambiguous, and singularly accurate depiction of real-world events, not subject to any interpretation …

Whither Reasonable Suspicion: The Supreme Court's Functional Abandonment Of The Reasonableness Requirement For Fourth Amendment Seizures, Steven P. Grossman

All Faculty Scholarship

Although the United States Supreme Court’s approach to issues governing application of the probable cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment has mutated over the years, at least one aspect of its approach has remained constant. Before information leading to probable cause or its lesser iteration of reasonable suspicion is found to exist, the government must demonstrate in some meaningful way the reliability of the person providing the information or of the information itself. Lacking such reliability, no search or seizure based on probable cause or reasonable suspicion is permitted. In its recent decision in Navarette v. California, the Court largely …

Trying To Fit A Square Peg Into A Round Hole: Why Title Ii Of The Americans With Disabilities Act Must Apply To All Law Enforcement Services, Michael Pecorini

Journal of Law and Policy

Police use of force has been subject to greater scrutiny in recent years in the wake of several high-profile killings of African Americans. Less attention, however, has been paid to the increasingly routine violent encounters between police and individuals with mental illness or intellectual and development disabilities (“I/DD”). This is particularly problematic, as police have become the de-facto first responders to these individuals and far too often police responses to these individuals result in tragedy.

This Note argues that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires law enforcement to provide reasonable accommodations during their interactions with and seizures of individuals with …

For The Protection Of Society's Most Vulnerable, The Ada Should Apply To Arrests, Thomas J. Auner

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Policing In The Era Of Permissiveness: Mitigating Misconduct Through Third-Party Standing, Julian A. Cook Iii

Brooklyn Law Review

On April 4, 2015, Walter L. Scott was driving his vehicle when he was stopped by Officer Michael T. Slager of the North Charleston, South Carolina, police department for a broken taillight. A dash cam video from the officer’s vehicle showed the two men engaged in what appeared to be a rather routine verbal exchange. Sometime after Slager returned to his vehicle, Scott exited his car and ran away from Slager, prompting the officer to pursue him on foot. After he caught up with Scott in a grassy field near a muffler establishment, a scuffle between the men ensued, purportedly …

Soundings And Silences, Laurence H. Tribe

Michigan Law Review Online

My work over the years has included both studying existing constitutions, particularly that of the United States, and assisting others with the drafting of new constitutions—from the Marshall Islands to the Czech Republic to South Africa. Among the things I noticed was that those undertakings, although distinct, were related—and related most significantly in the way that formative decisions about what to say and what not to say in a new constitution have bearing on later decisions about how to interpret what a constitution says or fails to say. My decision to pay special attention to the various roles of silence …

Fourth Amendment Implications Of Police-Worn Body Cameras, Erik Nielsen

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Policing In The Era Of Permissiveness: Mitigating Misconduct Through Third-Party Standing, Julian A. Cook

Scholarly Works

On April 4, 2015, Walter L. Scott was driving his vehicle when he was stopped by Officer Michael T. Slager of the North Charleston, South Carolina, police department for a broken taillight. A dash cam video from the officer’s vehicle showed the two men engaged in what appeared to be a rather routine verbal exchange. Sometime after Slager returned to his vehicle, Scott exited his car and ran away from Slager, prompting the officer to pursue him on foot. After he caught up with Scott in a grassy field near a muffler establishment, a scuffle between the men ensued, purportedly …

The Supreme Court's Quiet Expansion Of Qualified Immunity, Kit Kinports

Journal Articles

This Essay discusses the Supreme Court’s tendency in recent opinions to covertly expand the reach of the qualified immunity defense available to public officials in § 1983 civil rights suits. In particular, the Essay points out that the Court, often in per curiam rulings, has described qualified immunity in increasingly broad terms and has qualified and retreated from its precedents, without offering any explanation or even acknowledging that it is deviating from past practice.

In making this claim, I focus on three specific issues: the manner in which the Court characterizes the standard governing the qualified immunity defense; the question …

Ignorance Of The Law Is No Excuse—Unless You’Re A Cop, Hannah Dunn

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

When The Police Get The Law Wrong: How Heien V. North Carolina Further Erodes The Fourth Amendment, Vivan M. Rivera

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Never Alone: Why The Inevitable Influx Of Drones Necessitates A New Fourth Amendment Standard That Adequately Protects Reasonable Expectations Of Privacy, Paul Burgin

University of Baltimore Law Review

In June 2011, North Dakota cattle rancher Rodney Brossart became the first American to be arrested with the aid of a drone (Unmanned Aircraft System(s) or UAS) operated by law enforcement. Six cows found their way onto Brossart's property, and he refused to turn them over to law enforcement officials. Brossart and a few family members chased police officers off of his property at gunpoint, and police later returned with a warrant and SWAT team. A sixteen-hour standoff ensued until police called in the assistance of a UAS to pinpoint Brossart's exact location. Shortly thereafter, SWAT officers rushed in, tased, …

What's Fear Got To Do With It?: The "Armed And Dangerous" Requirement Of Terry, Gerald S. Reamey

Marquette Law Review

Rarely has a court’s opinion, even one from the Supreme Court of the United States, so altered existing notions of constitutional criminal procedure law as did the opinion in Terry v. Ohio. On several levels, the opinion dramatically shifted the way in which the Fourth Amendment was understood. Law students who had learned about the probable cause “requirement” and the warrant “requirement” were surprised to learn, especially in the case of the former, that these “requirements” were not required at all. To continue to conceptualize the Fourth Amendment’s single sentence guarantees as consisting of a “warrant clause” and a “reasonableness” …

Whren's Flawed Assumptions Regarding Race, History, And Unconscious Bias, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

This article is adapted from remarks presented at CWRU Law School's symposium marking the 20th anniversary of Whren v. United States. The article critiques Whren’s constitutional methodology and evident willful blindness to issues of social psychology, unconscious bias, and the lengthy American history of racialized conceptions of crime and criminalized conceptions of race. The article concludes by suggesting a possible path forward: reconceptualizing racially motivated pretextual police encounters as a badge or incident of slavery under the Thirteenth Amendment issue rather than as abstract Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment issues.