Fourth Amendment Commons^™

Miranda'S Failure To Restrain Pernicious Interrogation Practices, Welsh S. White

Michigan Law Review

As Yale Kamisar's writings on police interrogation demonstrate, our simultaneous commitments to promoting law enforcement's interest in obtaining confessions and to protecting individuals from overreaching interrogation practices have created a nearly irreconcilable tension. If the police must be granted authority to engage in effective questioning of suspects, it will obviously be difficult to insure that "the terrible engine of the criminal law . . . not . . . be used to overreach individuals who stand helpless against it." If we are committed to accommodating these conflicting interests, however, some means must be found to impose appropriate restraints on the …

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 …

Kyllo V. United States And The Partial Ascendance Of Justice Scalia's Fourth Amendment, Richard Henry Seamon

Articles

No abstract provided.

When Success Breeds Attack: The Coming Backlash Against Racial Profiling Studies, David A. Harris

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The author proposes that in an ongoing debate on questions concerning the possibility of racial or other types of invidious discrimination by public institutions, we should apply a prima facie standard to these claims in the public arena. In other words, if African Americans or Latinos say that they have been the victims of racial profiling, we should not ask for conclusive proof in the strictest statistical sense; rather, if they can present some credible evidence beyond anecdotes, some statistics that indicate that we may, indeed, have a problem, the burden should then shift to the public institution-here, law enforcement …

What Can Fourth Amendment Doctrine Learn From Vagueness Doctrine, Tracey Maclin

UF Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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.

An Exception Swallows A Rule: Police Authority To Search Incident To Arrest, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

Compared to Fourth Amendment jurisprudence more generally, with its well-earned reputation for complexity and variability, the search incident to arrest exception to the Amendment's warrant requirement would appear an oasis of consistency. The exception affords police an unqualified right to search anyone they arrest, without first obtaining a search warrant from a neutral judicial official. This right extends to the bodies of all arrestees, their area of "immediate control," and, if driving a car, the interior of the car and any containers located therein

Drug Tests, Arrests & Fetuses: A Comment On The U.S. Supreme Court's Narrow Opinion In Ferguson V. City Of Charleston, Brigitte M. Nahas

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article examines the Supreme Court's decision in Ferguson v. City of Charleston, where the Court ruled that a hospital's drug-testing policy for pregnant patients violated the Fourth Amendment. The analysis critiques the Court's narrow opinion for failing to provide clear guidance on future drug-testing policies, while emphasizing the unconstitutionality of using such policies primarily for law enforcement purposes. The author argues that the decision leaves unresolved questions about the balance between government interests and women's privacy and reproductive rights, particularly in the context of prenatal care and drug use.

What Is A Community? Group Rights And The Constitution: The Special Case Of African Americans, Taunya Lovell Banks

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Striking A Sincere Balance: A Reasonable Black Person Standard For "Location Plus Evasion" Terry Stops, Mia Carpiniello

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Randall Susskind originally proposed the "reasonable African American standard” for Terry stops as a way to minimize racial disparities in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. This paper will expand upon Susskind's suggested standard within the specific context of "location plus evasion" stops, in which suspects are stopped upon flight in a high-crime neighborhood. Part one will present the reasonable Black person standard in the context of Illinois v. Wardlow, a recent "location plus evasion case." Part one will then show how this alternative standard better accounts for Wardlow's "raced" decision to flee, the police officers' "raced" decision to stop him, and …

Dna Typing: Emerging Or Neglected Issues, David H. Kaye, Edward J. Imwinkelried

Faculty Scholarship

DNA typing has had a major impact on the criminal justice system. There are hundreds of opinions and thousands of cases dealing with DNA evidence. Yet, at virtually every stage of the process, there are important issues that are just emerging or that have been neglected.

At the investigative stage, courts have barely begun to focus on the legal limitations on the power of the police to obtain samples directly from suspects and to use the data from DNA samples in various ways. Issues such as the propriety of "DNA dragnets" (in which large numbers of individuals in a geographic …

Usual Suspects Beware: "Walk, Don't Run" Through Dangerous Neighborhoods, Margaret Anne Hoehl

University of Richmond Law Review

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is "designed 'to prevent arbitrary and oppressive interference by enforcement officials with the privacy and personal security of individuals." The Amendment is currently interpreted as consisting of two separate clauses, the first generally prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, and the second requiring the establishment of probable cause prior to the issuance of a warrant. Hence, only those government searches and seizures requiring a warrant necessitate the establishment of probable cause, and all other searches and seizures simply need to be "reasonable."

Keeping The Government's Hands Off Our Bodies: Mapping A Feminist Legal Theory Approach To Privacy In Cross-Gender Prison Searches, Teresa A. Miller

Journal Articles

The power of privacy is diminishing in the prison setting, and yet privacy is the legal theory prisoners rely upon most to resist searches by correctional officers. Incarcerated women in particular rely upon privacy to shield them from the kind of physical contact that male guards have been known to abuse. The kind of privacy that protects prisoners from searches by guards of the opposite sex derives from several sources, depending on the factual circumstances. Although some form of bodily privacy is embodied in the First, Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, prisoners challenging the constitutionality of cross-gender searches most commonly …

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

Michigan Journal of International Law

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. It then discusses research on the American system that sheds light on the relative advantages and disadvantages of the two regulatory regimes.

Criminal Procedure: Tenth Circuit Erroneously Allows Officers' Intentions To Define Reasonable Searches: United States V. Carey, Jim Dowell

Oklahoma Law Review

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.

State V. Parker: Searching The Belongings Of Nonarrested Vehicle Passengers During A Search Incident To Arrest, H. Matthew Munson

Washington Law Review

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 7 of the Washington Constitution generally require a warrant supported by probable cause to conduct a search or seizure. One exception to these requirements is a search incident to arrest, which permits the police to search arrested persons and the area within the arrestee's reach for weapons and evidence. Prior to State v. Parker, when police arrested an occupant of an automobile in Washington, they could search the entire passenger compartment of the vehicle with the exception of locked containers. In State v. Parker, a plurality of …

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 …

Wake Up And Smell The Contraband: Why Courts That Do Not Find Probable Cause Based On Odor Alone Are Wrong, Michael A. Sprow

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Fourth Amendment Problem With Probation In North Carolina, Stacy C. Eggers Iv

Campbell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law And Criminal Procedure—Media Ride-Alongs Into The Home: Can They Survive A Head-On Collision Between First And Fourth Amendment Rights? Wilson V. Layne, 526 U.S. 603 (1999), Deleith Duke Gossett

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Establishing A Legitimate Expectation Of Privacy In Clickstream Data, Gavin Skok

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

This Article argues that Web users should enjoy a legitimate expectation of privacy in clickstream data. Fourth Amendment jurisprudence as developed over the last half-century does not support an expectation of privacy. However, reference to the history of the Fourth Amendment and the intent of its drafters reveals that government investigation and monitoring of clickstream data is precisely the type of activity the Framers sought to limit. Courts must update outdated methods of expectation of privacy analysis to address the unique challenges posed by the Internet in order to fulfill the Amendment's purpose. Part I provides an overview of the …

Wilson, V Layne: Bans Press With Police In The Home, But Leaves Media Ride-Alongs Intact, Kathy A. Brown

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Wyoming V. Houghton: Passengers' Belongings Subject To Searches Under The "Automobile Exception" To The Fourth Amendment's Warrant Requirements, Theresa H. Hammond

Mercer Law Review

In Wyoming v. Houghton the United States Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of conducting a warrantless search of a container under the "automobile exception" to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. The Court held that when police officers have probable cause to search a vehicle, they may also search any container found in the car, including passengers' belongings, that are capable of concealing the object of the search.

Healing The Blind Goddess: Race And Criminal Justice, Mark D. Rosenbaum, Daniel P. Tokaji

Michigan Law Review

Once again, issues of race, ethnicity, and class within our criminal justice system have been thrust into the public spotlight. On both sides of the country, in our nation's two largest cities, police are being called to account for acts of violence directed toward poor people of color. In New York City, a West African immigrant named Amadou Diallo was killed by four white police officers, who fired forty-one bullets at the unarmed man as he stood in the vestibule of his apartment building in a poor section of the Bronx. Did race influence the officers' decisions to fire the …

Don't Rush To Abandon A Suspicion-Based Standard For Searches Of Public School Students, J. Nathan Jensen

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Prosecution And Section 1983, Barry Scheck

Articles

The article explores the intricate relationship between criminal prosecutions of police officers and subsequent Section 1983 civil rights claims. Professor Barry C. Scheck examines how the outcomes of criminal cases significantly influence civil litigation, highlighting challenges such as the "blue wall of silence," racial profiling, and legal strategies like Monell claims. The thesis underscores the strategic importance of federal intervention and the use of pattern and practice actions to address systemic issues in law enforcement.

Supreme Court's 1998-1999 Term: Fourth Amendment Decisions, Kathryn R. Urbonya

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Criminal Procedure: The Fourth Amendment Collides With The Problem Of Child Pornography And The Internet, Amy E. Wells

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.