Fourth Amendment Commons^™

Dna Identification Databases: Legality, Legitimacy, And The Case For Population-Wide Coverage, David H. Kaye, Michael E. Smith

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past decade, law enforcement authorities have amassed huge collections of DNA samples and the identifying profiles derived from them. Large DNA databanks routinely help to identify the guilty and to exonerate the innocent, but as the databanks grow, so do fears about civil liberties. Perhaps the most controversial policy issue in the creation of these databases is the question of coverage: Whose DNA profiles should be stored in them? The possibilities extend from convicted violent sex offenders to all convicted felons, to everyone arrested, to the entire population. This Article questions the rationales for drawing the line at …

Ferguson V. City Of Charleston: Gatekeeper Of The Fourth Amendment's "Special Needs" Exception, Lucinda Clements

Campbell Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Empirically Based Comparison Of American And European Regulatory Approaches To Police Investigation, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article takes a comparative and empirical look at two of the most significant methods of police investigation: searches for and seizures of tangible evidence and interrogation of suspects. It first compares American doctrine regulating these investigative tools with the analogous rules predominant in Europe (specifically, England, France and Germany). It then discusses research on the American system that sheds light on the relative advantages and disadvantages of the two regulatory systems. More often than not, the existing data call into question preconceived notions of what "works." In particular, American reverence for search warrants, the exclusionary rule, and "Miranda" warnings …

Accountability Solutions In The Consent Search And Seizure Wasteland, José F. Anderson

All Faculty Scholarship

The legal and social issues that have emerged out of the doctrine that people in America have a right against unreasonable government instituted searches and seizures have dominated the dialogue and controversy in the American criminal justice system over the last three decades. A large portion of the debate has centered around the controversial exclusionary rule, which frees the sometimes unmistakably guilty because of irregularities in police procedure.

The notion that society suffers when criminals go free because of the constable's blunder has struck a decidedly political note in the discussion over criminal justice reform. Many observers are quick to …

The Constitutionality Of Dna Sampling On Arrest, David H. Kaye

Faculty Scholarship

Every state now collects DNA from people convicted of certain offenses. Law enforcement authorities promote offender DNA databanking on the theory that it will identify offenders who commit additional crimes while or probation or parole, or after they have finished serving their sentences. Even relatively small databases have yielded such dividends. As these database searches uncover the perpetrators of rapes, murders, and other offenses, the pressure builds to expand the coverage of the databases.

Recent proposals call for extending not merely the scope of crimes for which DNA databanking would be used, but also the point at which the samples …

Stopping A Moving Target, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Racial Profiling And Whren: Searching For Objective Evidence Of The Fourth Amendment On The Nation's Roads, Alberto B. Lopez

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Establishing Inevitability Without Active Pursuit: Defining The Inevitable Discovery Exception To The Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule, Stephen E. Hessler

Michigan Law Review

Few doctrines of constitutional criminal procedure generate as much controversy as the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule. Beyond the basic mandate of the rule - that evidence obtained in violation of an individual's right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure is inadmissible in a criminal proceeding - little else is agreed upon. The precise date of the exclusionary rule's inception is uncertain, but it has been applied by the judiciary for over eight decades. While the Supreme Court has emphasized that the rule is a "judicially created remedy," and not a "personal constitutional right," this characterization provokes argument as …

Search And Seizure – Police Searches On Public School Campuses In New Mexico – State V. Tywayne H., Michael W. Doyle

Faculty Scholarship

In State v. Tywayne H. the New Mexico Court of Appeals held that the lowered standard of reasonable suspicion that the United States Supreme Court applied to school officials in New Jersey v. T.L.O. would not apply to police officers invited onto a public school campus if the police officers conducted the search solely at their own discretion. Thus, the court held that a police officer will be held to the standard of probable causefor searches on public school campuses. Prior to Tywayne H., New Mexico courts had not addressed the standard to which police would be held when …

Computer Searches And Seizure, Donald Resseguie

Cleveland State Law Review

This note will discuss legal issues related to search and seizure of computers and define the trend that the law is taking in the emerging area of inquiry. Personal privacy protection will be adequate regarding computer searches and seizures only if the courts properly balance the government's interests in bringing criminals to justice against citizens' interests against overly broad inquiries into the personal affairs. Section II provides a limited general discussion of constitutional limitations on search and seizure. Section III will discuss search and seizure of computers in the context of the "plain view" doctrine as an exception to the …

Filling In Some Pieces: The Supreme Court’S Criminal Law Decisions In The 1998-1999 Term, William E. Hellerstein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Recovering The Original Fourth Amendment, Thomas Y. Davies

Michigan Law Review

Claims regarding the original or intended meaning of constitutional texts are commonplace in constitutional argument and analysis. All such claims are subject to an implicit validity criterion - only historically authentic assertions should matter. The rub is that the original meaning commonly attributed to a constitutional text may not be authentic. The historical Fourth Amendment is a case in point. If American judges, lawyers, or law teachers were asked what the Framers intended when they adopted the Fourth Amendment, they would likely answer that the Framers intended that all searches and seizures conducted by government officers must be reasonable given …

Crimes And Errors Impossible To Commit: Defining Away The Fourth Amendment - Wyoming V. Houghton, Rachel Gader-Shafran

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note contends that the Court's decision to adopt the Houghton approach to the automobile warrant exception is problematic for three reasons. First, the Court has erroneously interpreted the historical evidence behind the creation of the Fourth Amendment. Second, the Court, by chipping away at stare decisis, is disrupting the foundations of American jurisprudence and the development of the law. Third, by creating a new lexicon, changing the meanings of the words, the Court is trying to define away the protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment. This Note will briefly summarize the facts of Houghton and review the historical purpose …

Why Liberals Should Chuck The Exclusionary Rule, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article makes the case against the exclusionary rule from a "liberal" perspective. Moving beyond the inconclusive empirical data on the efficacy of the rule, it uses behavioral and motivational theory to demonstrate why the rule is structurally unable to deter individual police officers from performing most unconstitutional searches and seizures. It also argues, contrary to liberal dogma, that the rule is poor at promoting Fourth Amendment values at the systemic, departmental level. Finally, the article contends that the rule stultifies liberal interpretation of the Fourth Amendment, in large part because of judicial heuristics that grow out of constant exposure …

Let's Not Bury Terry: A Call For Rejuvenation Of The Proportionality Principle, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Thirty years ago, "Terry v. Ohio" established a conceptual framework for the Fourth Amendment that makes more sense than any alternative the courts or commentators have come up with since. That frame-work, which I call the proportionality principle, is very simple: a search or seizure is reasonable if the strength of its justification is roughly proportionate to the level of intrusion associated with the police action. As the Court put it, "there is 'no ready test for determining reasonableness other than by balancing the need to search or seize against the invasion which the search or seizure entails.' In "Terry" …

Claims For Damages For Violations Of State Constitutional Rights - Analysis Of The Recent Court Of Appeals Decision In Brown V. New York; The Resolved And Unresolved Issues, Martin A. Schwartz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

New York Vs. "The Rest Of The Country": State Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Barry Latzer

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Execution Of Search Warrants, H. Patrick Furman

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Age Of Unreason: The Impact Of Reasonableness, Increased Police Force, And Colorblindness On Terry "Stop And Frisk", Omar Saleem

Journal Publications

No abstract provided.

It Was A Very Good Year - For The Government: The Supreme Court's Major Criminal Rulings Of The 1995-1996 Term, William E. Hellerstein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Court And The Changing Constitution: A Discussion, Carl Sividorski, James Gardner, Barry Latzer, Peter Galie

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

A World Without Privacy: Why Property Does Not Define The Limits Of The Right Against Unreasonable Searches And Seizures, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Bright Lines And Opaque Containers: Searching For Reasonable Rules In Automobile Cases, Stephen J. Bogacz ,Esq.

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Of Myths And Mapp: A Response To Professor Magee, Sheri Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Everyman's Fourth Amendment: Privacy Or Mutual Trust Between Government And Citizen, Scott E. Sundby

Articles

No abstract provided.

People V. Holmes: And Sometimes It's Not A Seizure, Steven A. Pilewski

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sotto Voce: The Supreme Court's Low Key But Not Insignificant Criminal Law Rulings During The 1992 Term, William E. Hellerstein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unspeakable Suspicions: Challenging The Racist Consensual Encounter, Peter Schoenburg, Risa Evans

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] "In recent years, law enforcement officials have honed a new technique for fighting the "War on Drugs:" the suspicionless police sweep of stations and vehicles involved in interstate mass transportation. Single officers or groups of officers approach unfortunate individuals in busses, trains, stations and airline terminals. A targeted traveller is requested to show identification and tickets, explain the purpose of his or her travels, and finally, at times, to consent to a luggage search. As long as "a reasonable person would understand that he or she could refuse to cooperate," the encounter between the law-enforcement official and the traveller …

The 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 …

The Fourth Amendment And Its Exclusionary Rule, Yale Kamisar

Articles

"The history of liberty," Justice Felix Frankfurter once noted, "has largely been the history of observance of procedural safeguards" and "the history of the destruction of liberty," Professor Anthony Amsterdam has added, "has largely been the history of the relaxation of those safeguards in the face of plausible sounding governmental claims of a need to deal with widely frightening and emotion freighted threats to the good order of society." These plausible-sounding government claims are being heard today -and they are putting enormous pressure on the Fourth Amendment, the constitutional provision that protects "the right of the people to be secure …