Fourth Amendment Commons^™

Court Of Appeals Of New York, People V. Johnson, Denise Shanley

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Qualified Immunity In The Fourth Amendment: A Practical Application Of 1983 As It Applies To Fourth Amendment Excessive Force Cases, Karen Blum

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Fatal Flaws Of The 'Sneak And Peek' Statute And How To Fix It, Jonathan Witmer-Rich

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the USA PATRIOT Act, Congress authorized delayed notice search warrants — warrants authorizing a “sneak and peek” search, in which investigators conduct covert searches, notifying the occupant weeks or months after the search. These warrants also sometimes authorize covert seizures — a “sneak and steal” search — in which investigators seize evidence, often staging the scene to look like a burglary.

Covert searches invade the privacy of the home and should be used only in exceptional cases. The current legal rules governing delayed notice search warrants are conceptually flawed. The statute uses a legal doctrine — “exigent circumstances” — …

Minding Your Meds: Balancing The Needs For Patient Privacy And Law Enforcement In Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs, Devon T. Unger

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Case For Rational Basis Review Of General Suspicionless Searches And Seizures, Richard C. Worf

Touro Law Review

This article examines the constitutional status of suspicionless searches and seizures of groups- an exceedingly important question in the age of terror, and a subject recently brought back to the forefront by the searches of subway passengers in New York City. It draws on process theory to argue that when a legislature has authorized a group search or seizure, courts should generally apply rational basis review.

First, other areas of constitutional doctrine exhibit deep trust in the power of groups to protect their interests in political process, and there is no reason why fourth amendment doctrine should not do the …

Supreme Court, New York County, People V. Smith, Jessica Miller

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Appellate Division, First Department, Koeiman V. New York, Gennaro Savastano

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Court Of Appeals Of New York, People V. Burton, Diane Matero

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Court Of Appeals Of New York, People V. Moore, Gennaro Savastano

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Privacy In Social Media: To Tweet Or Not To Tweet?, Tara M. Breslawski

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

It's Reasonable To Expect Privacy When Watching Adult Videos, Matthew Leonhardt

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fourth Amendment Right To Privacy With Respect To Bank Records In Criminal Cases, Francesca M. Brancato

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

You Do Not Have The Right To Remain Drunk: Expanding The Scope Of Implied Consent Through Fifth Amendment Voluntariness Standards, Avi Goldstein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

You Have The Right To Be Free From Unwanted Bodily Intrusion--Unless Of Course There Is A Court Order, Tara Laterza

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Blueprint: Critiques Of The Fingerprint And Abandonment Paradigms Utilized To Reject An Expectation Of Privacy In Dna, Avi Goldstein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Locked Glove Compartments: Searchable Or Stash Spots?, Evan Levtow

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Delayed Search Of An Automobile Makes For An Unconstitutional Seizure, Sean J. Mcgowan

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brief For The National Association Of Social Workers And The Ohio Chapter Of The National Association Of Social Workers As Amici Curie In Support Of Petitioners, No. 13-933, United States Supreme Court (Mar. 6, 2014), Doron M. Kalir, Carolyn I. Polowy

Law Faculty Briefs and Court Documents

NASW's first argument is simple. To protect children from abuse - a major congressional and state legislative goal - this Court should apply qualified immunity to protect social workers from personal liability where a reasonable decision has been made to remove a child without a warrant.

NASW's second argument is equally cogent. DeShaney was decided 25 years ago. Since then, this Court's "continued silence" on the issue, Kovacic, 724 F.3d at 708 (Sutton, J., dissenting), has failed "to provide guidance to those charged with the difficult task of protecting child welfare within the confines of the Fourth Amendment." Camreta v. …

Facebook Is Not Your Friend: Protecting A Private Employee's Expectation Of Privacy In Social Networking Content In The Twenty-First Century Workplace, Cara Magatelli

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This Comment explores the implications SNS postings have on private employers concerning the off-duty, non-work related conduct of their employees. This argument recognizes that an employee is entitled to engage in whatever legal off-duty conduct he chooses, so long as the behavior does not damage his employer's legitimate business interests. An employer should not be able to use information gleaned from an employee's SNS postings, unrelated to an employer's business interests, to punish an employee for her choices outside the work place. Disciplining or terminating an employee for his off-duty lifestyle choices permits the morals and standards of the employer …

Our Records Panopticon And The American Bar Association Standards For Criminal Justice, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

"Secrets are lies. Sharing is caring. Privacy is theft." So concludes the main character in Dave Egger’s novel The Circle, in which a single company that unites Google, Facebook, and Twitter – and on steroids – has the ambition not only to know, but also to share, all of the world's information. It is telling that a current dystopian novel features not the government in the first instance, but instead a private third party that, through no act of overt coercion, knows so much about us. This is indeed the greatest risk to privacy in our day, both the unprecedented …

Reforming The Grand Jury To Protect Privacy In Third Party Records, Andrew Taslitz, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

In late 2014, two grand juries returned controversial no bill decisions in police killings, one in Ferguson, Missouri, and one in New York City. These outcomes have renewed calls for grand jury reform, and whatever one thinks of these particular processes and outcomes, such reform is long overdue. One logical source of reform to better respect privacy in records, which would have incidental benefits beyond this privacy focus, would be the newly enacted American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice on Law Enforcement Access to Third Party Records (LEATPR).

But LEATPR exempts from its requirements access to records via a …

The Purpose Of The Fourth Amendment And Crafting Rules To Implement That Purpose, Thomas K. Clancy

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Big Data Distortions: Exploring The Limits Of The Aba Leatpr Standards, Andrew Ferguson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article examines the American Bar Associations’ Standards for Criminal Justice proposed Law Enforcement Access to Third Party Records (LEATPR). The article was written to be part of an Oklahoma Law Review Symposium on the subject of the LEATPR Standards. The article explores how the ABA LEATPR Standards can survive the impact of big data policing. Big data policing, as described here, involves utilizing vast, networked databases to investigate and also predict criminal activity. Big data policing involves the use of not just third party, but "fourth party" commercial aggregators as well as de-identified data sets, that eventually can be …

The Fourth Amendment's National Security Exception: Its History And Limits, L. Rush Atkinson

Vanderbilt Law Review

Since 2001, federal prosecutors have indicted and convicted hundreds of defendants for terrorism, espionage, and other national security crimes.' And for every prosecution, there are dozens of investigations into foreign threats that never result in a trial. Between 2001 and 2010, for example, the federal government obtained 16,306 foreign intelligence warrants in the course of its security operations. Between 2004 and 2011, the Federal Bureau of Investigations ("FBI") issued 119,192 National Security Letters for records deemed to be pertinent to national security investigations.

Despite these numbers, security investigations and prosecutions proceed on uncertain constitutional footing. The rights of terrorism suspects …

Who Should Be The ‘Decider’ On Keeping Our Secrets?, Stephen Henderson

Other Faculty Publications

An invited essay for Constitution Day, also available here: http://blogs.law.widener.edu/constitution2013/2013-essay-authors/stephen-henderson/It addresses the national security surveillance disclosed by Edward Snowden and others, and asks whether a fundamental shift would be prudent in the era of Big Data.

Life On Streets And Trails: Fourth Amendment Rights For The Homeless And The Homeward Bound, Wesley C. Jackson

Vanderbilt Law Review

People who read law review articles usually have the resources to temporarily abscond from society on a whim, perhaps to the nearest trailhead, and begin a trek through the woods. Such readers, if they choose a well-maintained trail frequented by long-distance hikers, may come across a simple, three-sided cabin known as a shelter. There they might find a grimy and unwashed bunch, talking amongst themselves using jargon such as "blazes" and "trail angels." Some may recognize them as "thru-hikers" and wonder how long the scrawny, bearded, and overloaded travelers have been at it. But some may ask if these apparent …

A Shattered Looking Glass: The Pitfalls And Potential Of The Mosaic Theory Of Fourth Amendment Privacy, David C. Gray, Danielle Keats Citron

Faculty Scholarship

On January 23, 2012, the Supreme Court issued a landmark non-decision in United States v. Jones. In that case, officers used a GPS-enabled device to track a suspect’s public movements for four weeks, amassing a considerable amount of data in the process. Although ultimately resolved on narrow grounds, five Justices joined concurring opinions in Jones expressing sympathy for some version of the “mosaic theory” of Fourth Amendment privacy. This theory holds that we maintain reasonable expectations of privacy in certain quantities of information even if we do not have such expectations in the constituent parts. This Article examines and …

Implications Of United States V. Jones On Dna Collection Form Arrestees: Trespass Prohibited By The Fourth Amendment, Angelique Romero

St. Thomas Law Review

This comment discusses the constitutionality of warrantless DNA collection from arrestees, and proposes an analysis that the Supreme Court should use when deciding on this issue to find that this practice violates the Fourth Amendment. Part II of this comment discusses the general development of DNA collection laws, how the laws have expanded to include persons that have been arrested but not convicted of certain crimes, and the procedures used to collect the DNA samples. In addition, Part II includes a survey of the conflicting decisions by courts across the country and demonstrates the disagreement over the constitutionality of this …

Do You Know Where Your Dna Is? The Need For Dna Legislation In Ohio, Elizabeth Collins

Journal of Law and Health

This Note examines the several privacy and safety issues stemming from DNA theft. Part II discusses constitutional and common law regarding the abandonment of property, particularly under the Fourth Amendment, and explains how the Fourth Amendment does not protect individuals from DNA theft. Part III details the many consequences resulting from DNA theft. These risks, among countless others, include employment and insurance discrimination, family turmoil caused by paternity testing which is often inaccurate and conducted without consent, genetic stalking, security risks, and the unauthorized publication of personal medical information and ancestral information. Part IV examines DNA theft legislation adopted by …

American Bar Association Criminal Justice Standards On Law Enforcement Access To Third Party Records, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Drafted over the past six years and adopted by the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates in February, 2012, these Criminal Justice Standards on Law Enforcement Access to Third Party Records provide much needed guidance to legislatures, courts, and administrative agencies having to decide how to regulate law enforcement access to existing records in the hands of third parties. It is the first framework of its kind, and it can do much to improve the current system of ad hoc protections in both state and federal systems. Decision makers are struggling to determine when to permit law enforcement access …