Carpenter V. United States And The Fourth Amendment: The Best Way Forward, Stephen E. Henderson
Dec 2017
Carpenter V. United States And The Fourth Amendment: The Best Way Forward, Stephen E. Henderson
Stephen E Henderson
We finally have a federal ‘test case.’ In Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court is poised to set the direction of the Fourth Amendment in the digital age. The case squarely presents how the twentieth-century third party doctrine will fare in contemporary times, and the stakes could not be higher. This Article reviews the Carpenter case and how it fits within the greater discussion of the Fourth Amendment third party doctrine and location surveillance, and I express a hope that the Court will be both a bit ambitious and a good measure cautious.
As for ambition, the …
Lawn Signs: A Fourth Amendment For Constitutional Curmudgeons, Stephen E. Henderson, Andrew G. Ferguson
Dec 2015
Lawn Signs: A Fourth Amendment For Constitutional Curmudgeons, Stephen E. Henderson, Andrew G. Ferguson
Stephen E Henderson
What is the constitutional significance of the proverbial “keep off the grass” sign? This question—asked by curmudgeonly neighbors everywhere—has been given new currency in a recent decision by the United States Supreme Court. Indeed, Florida v. Jardines might have bestowed constitutional curmudgeons with significant new Fourth Amendment protections. By expressing expectations regarding—and control over—access to property, “the people” may be able to claim greater Fourth Amendment protections not only for their homes, but also for their persons, papers, and effects. This article launches a constitutionally grounded, but lighthearted campaign of citizen education and empowerment: Fourth Amendment LAWn signs. With every …
Fourth Amendment Time Machines (And What They Might Say About Police Body Cameras), Stephen E. Henderson
Dec 2015
Fourth Amendment Time Machines (And What They Might Say About Police Body Cameras), Stephen E. Henderson
Stephen E Henderson
When it comes to criminal investigation, time travel is increasingly possible. Despite longstanding roots in traditional investigation, science is today providing something fundamentally different in the form of remarkably complete digital records. And those big data records not only store our past, but thanks to data mining they are in many circumstances eerily good at predicting our future. So, now that we stand on the threshold of investigatory time travel, how should the Fourth Amendment and legislation respond? How should we approach bulk government capture, such as by a solar-powered drone employing wide-area persistent stare technology? Is it meaningfully different …
Search, Seizure, And Immunity: Second-Order Normative Authority And Rights, Stephen E. Henderson, Kelly Sorensen
Dec 2012
Search, Seizure, And Immunity: Second-Order Normative Authority And Rights, Stephen E. Henderson, Kelly Sorensen
Stephen E Henderson
A paradigmatic aspect of a paradigmatic kind of right is that the rights holder is the only one who can alienate it. When individuals waive rights, the normative source of that waiving is normally taken to be the individual herself. This moral feature—immunity—is usually in the background of discussions about rights. We bring it into the foreground here, with specific attention to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Kentucky v. King (2011), concerning search and seizure rights. An entailment of the Court’s decision is that, at least in some cases, a right can be removed by the intentional actions of …