Criminal Law Commons^™

Is The Exclusionary Rule Dead?, Craig M. Bradley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In three recent decisions, Hudson v. Michigan, Herring v. United States, and last Term's Davis v. United States, the Supreme Court has indicated a desire to severely restrict the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule. A majority of the Justices wants to limit its application to cases where the police have violated the Fourth Amendment purposely, knowingly, or recklessly, but not where they have engaged in "simple, isolated negligence" or where negligence is "attenuated" from the discovery of the evidence. They have further suggested that evidence should not be excluded where the police have behaved as reasonable policemen, using the approach from …

Camreta And Al-Kidd: The Supreme Court, The Fourth Amendment, And Witnesses, Kit Kinports

Faculty Scholarship

Although few noticed the link between them, two Supreme Court cases decided in the same week last Term, Ashcroft v. al-Kidd and Camreta v. Greene, both involved the Fourth Amendment implications of detaining witnesses to a crime. Al-Kidd, an American citizen, was arrested under the federal material witness statute in connection with an investigation into terrorist activities, and Greene, a nine-year-old suspected victim of child abuse, was seized and interrogated at school by two state officials. The opinions issued in the two cases did little to resolve the constitutional issues that arise in witness detention cases, and in fact …

Drawing Lines: Unrelated Probable Cause As A Prerequisite To Early Dna Collection, David H. Kaye

Faculty Scholarship

Swabbing the inside of a cheek has become part of the custodial arrest process in many jurisdictions. The majority view (thus far) is that routinely collecting DNA before conviction (and analyzing it, recording the results, and comparing them to DNA profiles from crime-scene databases) is consistent with Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. However, some judges and commentators have argued that DNA sampling in advance of a determination by a judge or grand jury of probable cause for the arrest or charge is unconstitutional. This essay shows that this demand is largely unfounded. Either warrantless, suspicionless DNA collection …

Why Crime Severity Analysis Is Not Reasonable: A Comment, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Jeffrey Bellin’s article, Crime Severity Distinctions and the Fourth Amendment: Reassessing Reasonableness in a Changing World, argues that the severity of the crime under investigation ought to be taken into account in assessing both the reasonableness of searches and whether a government action is a search in the first place. In pursuit of this objective, his article provides the best attempt to date at dealing with the difficult issue of separating serious from not-so serious crimes (he ends up with three categories—grave, serious and minor. He then makes the enticing argument that calibrating the degree of Fourth Amendment protection according …

Crime-Severity Distinctions And The Fourth Amendment: Reassessing Reasonableness In A Changing World, Jeffrey Bellin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A growing body of commentary calls for the Supreme Court to recalibrate its Fourth Amendment jurisprudence in response to technological and social changes that threaten the traditional balance between public safety and personal liberty. This Article joins the discussion, highlighting a largely overlooked consideration that should be included in any modernization of Fourth Amendment doctrine-crime severity. The Supreme Court emphasizes that "reasonableness" is the "touchstone" of Fourth Amendment analysis. Yet, in evaluating contested searches and seizures, current Fourth Amendment doctrine ignores a key determinant of reasonableness, the crime under investigation. As a result, an invasive search of a suspected murderer …

A Brave New World Of Stop And Frisk, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

In this article, the author Ron Bacigal discusses the editorials, The Shame of New York by Bob Herbert and Fighting Crime Where the Criminals Are by Heather MacDonald. These editorials were prompted by the New York City Police Department's release of figures regarding "stop and frisk" incidents within New York City.' MacDonald and Herbert reacted to the same statistical report by putting two very different spins on the raw data. While it's always helpful to compile empirical evidence, Bacigal suggests that we also need to look beyond the mere numbers. If you put aside anecdotal versions of encounters between minorities …

Driving Into Unreasonableness: The Driveway, The Curtilage, And Reasonable Expectations Of Privacy, Vanessa Rownaghi

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

O.P.P.: How "Occupy's" Race-Based Privilege May Improve Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence For All, Lenese C. Herbert

Seattle University Law Review

This Article submits that Occupy’s race problem could, ironically, prove to be a solution if protesters grow more serious about exposing the injury of political subordination and systems of privilege that adhere to the criminal justice system. Privilege is a “systemic conferral of benefit and advantage [as a result of] affiliation, conscious or not and chosen or not, to the dominant side of a power system.” Accordingly, now that police mistreatment affects them personally, Occupy may finally help kill a fictitious Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that ignores oppression through improper policing based on racial stigma. Occupy may also help usher in …

Police Mistakes Of Law, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

This Article addresses something that most Americans would consider a constitutional impossibility: police officers stopping or arresting individuals for lawful behavior and courts deeming such seizures reasonable for Fourth Amendment purposes, thereby precluding application of the exclusionary rule. Today, however, an increasing number of courts condone seizures based on what they consider “reasonable” police mistakes of law, typically concerning petty offenses, and permit evidence secured as a result to support prosecutions for unrelated, more serious offenses (usually relating to guns or drugs). The Article surveys the important rule-of-law, separation-of-powers, and legislative-accountability reasons supporting continued judicial adherence to the historic no-excuse …

School Children And Parolees: Not So Special Anymore, Edwin Butterfoss

Faculty Scholarship

The Fourth Amendment special needs exception may be one of the Court’s most puzzling doctrines. Since its origin, the Court has struggled to define its limits and its place in the Court’s suspicionless search and seizure jurisprudence. At times the Court has suggested that the exception is the only route to upholding a search or seizure in the absence of individualized suspicion, while at other times it has stated that it is just one of a limited number of exceptions to the requirement of individualized suspicion. Historically, while the application of the special needs exception has been unpredictable, one thing …

Randomization And The Fourth Amendment, Bernard Harcourt, Tracey L. Meares

Faculty Scholarship

Randomized checkpoint searches are generally taken to be the exact antithesis of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment. In the eyes of most jurists checkpoint searches violate the central requirement of valid Fourth Amendment searches – namely, individualized suspicion. We disagree. In this Article, we contend that randomized searches should serve as the very lodestar of a reasonable search. The notion of "individualized" suspicion is misleading; most suspicion in the modem policing context is group based and not individual specific. Randomized searches by definition are accompanied by a certain level of suspicion. The constitutional issue, we maintain, should not turn on …

Unraveling The Exclusionary Rule: From Leon To Herring To Robinson - And Back?, David H. Kaye

Faculty Scholarship

The Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule began to unravel in United States v. Leon. The facts were compelling. Why exclude reliable physical evidence from trial when it was not the constable who blundered, but “a detached and neutral magistrate” who misjudged whether probable cause was present and issued a search warrant? Later cases applied the exception for “good faith” mistakes to a police officer who, pursuing a grudge against a suspect, arrested and searched him and his truck on the basis of a false and negligent report from a clerk in another county of an outstand­ing arrest warrant. The California Supreme …

Arrest Efficiency And The Fourth Amendment, Song Richardson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In recent years, legal scholars have utilized the science of implicit social cognition to reveal how unconscious biases affect perceptions, behaviors, and judgments. Employing this science, scholars critique legal doctrine and challenge courts to take accurate theories of human behavior into account or to explain their failure to do so. Largely absent from this important conversation, however, are Fourth Amendment scholars. This void is surprising because the lessons of implicit social cognition can contribute much to understanding police behavior, especially as it relates to arrest efficiency or hit rates - the rates at which police find evidence of criminal activity …

Expanding The Scope Of The Good-Faith Exception To The Exclusionary Rule To Include A Law Enforcement Officer's Reasonable Reliance On Well-Settled Case Law That Is Subsequently Overruled, Ross Oklewicz

Celebrating WCL Student Authors

In 2009, the Supreme Court handed down several important decisions on criminal procedure. Perhaps unanticipated at the time, two of those decisions have been read together by lower courts to reach dramatically different results. The emerging split has been sharp, bringing with it urgent calls for the Court to intervene.

Laying the foundation for the conflicting decisions was New York v. Belton, in which the Supreme Court held that “when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of the automobile” …

The Anatomy Of A Search: Intrusiveness And The Fourth Amendment, Renée Mcdonald Hutchins

University of Richmond Law Review

In this essay, I contend that when evaluating the constitutionality of enhanced surveillance devices, the existing test for assessing the occurrence of a Fourth Amendment search should be modified. Specifically, I suggest that intrusiveness should be unambiguously adopted by the Court as the benchmark for assessing and defining the existence of a search under the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, intrusiveness should be clearly defined to require an examination of two factors: the functionality of a challenged form of surveillance and the potential for disclosure created by the device.

Erie And Federal Criminal Courts, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

Today, low-level state and local criminal laws figure critically in federal prosecutions, serving as the initial bases for police seizures that yield evidence leading to more serious federal charges (usually involving drugs or firearms). While police resort to such laws as pretexts to stop and arrest individuals has been frequently addressed, this article provides the first analysis of how federal courts actually interpret and apply the laws. In doing so, the article reveals a surprising reality, long dismissed as a doctrinal impossibility: federal judicial use of the analytic framework of Erie v. Tompkins to resolve criminal cases.

As the article …

Gant And The Good-Faith Exception, Karly A. Kauf

American University Criminal Law Brief

No abstract provided.

Moving Targets: Placing The Good Faith Doctrine In The Context Of Fragmented Policing, Hadar Aviram, Jeremy Seymour, Richard A. Leo

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The debate sparked by Herring v. United States is a microcosm of the quintessential debate about the scope of the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule and ultimately the appropriate breadth of police authority and constitutional review by courts. Offering a new reading of the decision, this article argues that Herring reflects a healthy dosage of real politic and an acknowledgment that American policing is characterized by a fragmented, localized structure with little overview and control, and much reliance on local agencies. Part I presents the authors’ interpretation of Herring as a case hinging upon the question “who made the mistake?” as …

Herring V. United States: Mapp's "Artless" Overruling?, Michael Vitiello

Nevada Law Journal

The central thesis of this essay is that, consistent with the “art of overruling,” the Court could have limited Mapp, for example, by extending the good-faith reasonable mistake rationale that animates cases like United States v. Leon. As developed below, the facts of Herring are quite similar to the facts of other cases where the Court upheld police conduct that, although erroneous, seemed reasonable; accordingly, excluding the illegally obtained evidence had no value as a deterrent of future conduct in light of the reasonableness of the police officer's mistake. However, Herring goes much further and points towards a much greater …

The Death Of Suspicion, Fabio Arcila Jr.

Scholarly Works

This article argues that neither the presumptive warrant requirement nor the presumptive suspicion requirement are correct. Though representative of the common law, they do not reflect the totality of our historic experience, which includes civil search practices. More importantly, modern developments - such as urban life and technological advancements, the rise of the regulatory state, and security concerns post-9/11 - have sufficiently changed circumstances so that these rules are not just unworkable now, they are demonstrably wrong. Worst of all, adhering to them has prevented us from formulating a more coherent Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. A new paradigm confronts us, in …

Reconceiving The Fourth Amendment And The Exclusionary Rule, Craig M. Bradley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Reasonableness As A Rule: A Paean To Justice O'Connor's Dissent In Atwater V. City Of Lago Vista, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

This paper, part of a symposium dedicated to “great” Fourth Amendment dissents, examines Justice Sandra Day O’Connor's dissent in Atwater v. City of Lago Vista (2001), where by a 5-4 vote the Court upheld the constitutionality of warrantless police arrests for non-breach of the peace, fine-only offenses. In addition to rightfully condemning the majority's decision to equate probable cause with constitutional reasonableness, in principle, Justice O’Connor presciently recognized the numerous liberty and privacy-restricting consequences of the outcome for the “everyday lives of Americans.” Atwater, combined with decisions issued before and after it, including Whren v. United States, Devenpeck …

Contingent Constitutionalism: State And Local Criminal Laws And The Applicability Of Federal Constitutional Rights, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

Americans have long been bound by a shared sense of constitutional commonality, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly condemned the notion that federal constitutional rights should be allowed to depend on distinct state and local legal norms. In reality, however, federal rights do indeed vary, and they do so as a result of their contingent relationship to the diversity of state and local laws on which they rely. Focusing on criminal procedure rights in particular, this Article examines the benefits and detriments of constitutional contingency, and casts in new light many enduring understandings of American constitutionalism, including the effects of …

"Knock And Talk" And The Fourth Amendment, Craig M. Bradley

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law—No Right To Revoke And Avoid Search-Ninth Circuit Rules That Consent To Airport Screening Cannot Be Revoked In An Administrative Search. United States V. Aukai, 497 F.3d 955 (9th Cir. 2007)., Bethany A. Gulley

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Driving Through Arkansas? Have Your Dna Sample Ready, Brian Gallini

School of Law Faculty Publications and Presentations

No Arkansas appellate court has examined the constitutionality of the recently enacted House Bill 1473 – better known as “Juli’s Law” – which allows officers to take DNA samples from suspects arrested for capital murder, murder in the first degree, kidnapping, sexual assault in the first degree, and sexual assault in the second degree. This brief essay contends that Juli’s Law violates the Fourth Amendment of the federal constitution.

Step Out Of The Car: License, Registration, And Dna Please, Brian Gallini

School of Law Faculty Publications and Presentations

No Arkansas appellate court has examined the constitutionality of the recently enacted House Bill 1473 – better known as “Juli’s Law” – which allows officers to take DNA samples from suspects arrested for capital murder, murder in the first degree, kidnapping, sexual assault in the first degree, and sexual assault in the second degree. This Essay contends that Juli’s Law violates the Fourth Amendment of the federal constitution. Part I highlights certain features of the statute and explores the rationale underlying its enactment. Part II discusses the only published decision upholding the practice of taking of DNA samples from certain …

Diminishing Probable Cause And Minimalist Searches, Kit Kinports

Faculty Scholarship

This paper comments on recent Supreme Court opinions that have used phrases such as "reasonable belief" and "reason to believe" when analyzing intrusions that generally require proof of probable cause. Historically, the Court used these terms as shorthand references for both probable cause and reasonable suspicion. While this lack of precision was unobjectionable when the concepts were interchangeable, that has not been true since Terry v. Ohio created a distinction between the two standards. When the Justices then resurrect these terms without situating them in the dichotomy between probable cause and reasonable suspicion, it is not clear whether they are …

Say Cheese! Examining The Constitutionality Of Photostops, Molly Bruder

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reforming Fourth Amendment Privacy Doctrine, Jim Harper

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.