Fourth Amendment Commons^™

Tort Justice Reform, Paul David Stern

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article calls for a comprehensive reform of public tort law with respect to law enforcement conduct. It articulates an effective and equitable remedial regime that reconciles the aspirational goals of public tort law with the practical realities of devising payment and disciplinary procedures that are responsive to tort settlements and judgments. This proposed statutory scheme seeks to deter law enforcement misconduct without disincentivizing prudent officers from performing their duties or overburdening them with extensive litigation. Rather than lamenting the dissolution of Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics or the insurmountability of qualified immunity, reform …

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace: Border Searches Of Electronic Devices In The Digital Age, Sean O'Grady

Fordham Law Review

The border search exception to the Fourth Amendment has historically given the U.S. government the right to conduct suspicionless searches of the belongings of any individual crossing the border. The federal government relies on the border search exception to search and detain travelers’ electronic devices at the border without a warrant or individualized suspicion. The government’s justification for suspicionless searches of electronic devices under the traditional border search exception for travelers’ property has recently been called into question in a series of federal court decisions. In March 2013, the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Cotterman became the first federal …

Reevaluating School Searches Following School-To-Prison Pipeline Reforms, Josh Gupta-Kagan

Fordham Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court held in New Jersey v. T.L.O. that school officials could search students without a warrant and with only reasonable suspicion, not probable cause, because of schools’ need for discipline and the relationship between educators and students. That case belongs to a body of Fourth Amendment cases involving, in T.L.O.’s terms, “special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement.” What Fourth Amendment standard, then, governs searches involving one of the roughly 20,000 school resource officers (SROs) in American schools? Most state courts to decide the issue in the 1990s and 2000s found that T.L.O. applied to …

Customs, Immigration, And Rights: Constitutional Limits On Electronic Border Searches, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The warrantless search of travelers’ electronic devices as they enter and exit the United States is rapidly increasing. While the Supreme Court has long recognized a border-search exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, it applies to only two interests: promoting the duty regime and preventing contraband from entering the country; and ensuring that individuals are legally admitted. The government’s recent use of the exception goes substantially beyond these matters. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are using it to search electronic devices, and at times the cloud, for evidence of any criminal activity, …

Heien V. North Carolina And Significant Interpretive Court Cases: An Empirical Examination Of Police Officers’ Perceptions And Knowledge, Michael De Leo

Master of Science in Criminal Justice Theses & (Pre-2016) Policy Research Projects

This empirical study examines legal aspects of policing in relation to the recent, landmark United States Supreme Court case of Heien v. North Carolina. In Heien, the Court found that objectively reasonable mistakes of law by police can support traffic stops. By doing so, it extends the permissible margin of error for stops by law enforcement officers. Due to the potential, far-reaching implications of the Heien decision, including implications for law enforcement and for the Fourth Amendment privacy protections of individuals, it is important to better understand how the lower courts have interpreted and applied Heien. Therefore, …

Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide.* Applying The Fourth Amendment To Connected Cars In The Internet-Of-Things Era, Gregory C. Brown, Jr.

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Part I of this Note will briefly discuss the key components of a Connected Car, identify who collects the data from the Car, and examine the various uses for the data. Part I also explores whether Car owners consent to the collection of their Car’s data. Part II-A will trace the historical development of the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment, which generally permits law-enforcement officers to conduct a warrantless search of a vehicle. Part II-B will discuss how the Supreme Court has applied the Fourth Amendment to pre-Internet technologies. Part II-C will discuss two recent Fourth Amendment Supreme …

On The Fringes Of The Fourth Amendment: Changing Reasonableness At The Border, Isabelle Hutchinson

Student Scholarship

The protection of the U.S.-Mexico border has become a priority for politicians and government officials alike. However, the protection of people��s rights near the border has been largely ignored. Due to the Fourth Amendment��s border search exception, customs officials and border patrol agents may use lower standards for suspicion in conducting searches and seizures of people in the border region. In determining whether a search or seizure is reasonable, the Fourth Amendment requires balancing of the degree to which the government intrudes on a person��s privacy against the government��s interest in conducting the search. This Article analyzes the changes in …

Custodial Compulsion, Kyron J. Huigens

Articles

In cases that fall under Miranda v Arizona, police interrogators not only give a suspect reasons to confess; they also suggest that the suspect ought to confess. In doing so, interrogators effectively invoke the Wigmorean duty of a citizen to produce any evidence he has in his possession, including his own confession. That is, they invoke the duty against which the Self Incrimination Clause stands, so that the clause is applicable to police interrogations, and is violated where it is not waived. This means that “a Miranda violation” is a violation of the Self Incrimination Clause in the field, just …

The Public Information Fallacy, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

The concept of privacy in “public” information or acts is a perennial topic for debate. It has given privacy law fits. People struggle to reconcile the notion of protecting information that has been made public with traditional accounts of privacy. As a result, successfully labeling information as public often functions as a permission slip for surveillance and personal data practices. It has also given birth to a significant and persistent misconception — that public information is an established and objective concept.

In this article, I argue that the “no privacy in public” justification is misguided because nobody knows what “public” …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

When A Tent Is Your Castle: Constitutional Protection Against Unreasonable Searches Of Makeshift Dwellings Of Unhoused Persons, Evanie Parr

Seattle University Law Review

This Note will argue that all jurisdictions should follow the Washington State Court of Appeals, Division II in validating makeshift dwellings used by people experiencing homelessness as spaces protected from unwarranted police intrusions by shifting evaluations of “reasonable expectations of privacy” to a more equitable standard that appreciates the realities of economic disparity. This approach to constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures is imperative to protect the rights of people experiencing homelessness, given that such individuals are regularly subjected to invasions of privacy and heightened exposure to the criminal justice system.

Taking Shelter Under The Fourth Amendment: The Constitutionality Of Policing Methods At State-Sponsored Natural Disaster Shelters, Kyle M. Wood

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Demise Of § 1983 Malicious Prosecution: Separating Tort Law From The Fourth Amendment, Erin E. Mcmannon

Notre Dame Law Review

The common-law tort of malicious prosecution originally developed to provide a remedy for plaintiffs who were unjustly prosecuted in a criminal proceeding. Today, malicious prosecution actions can be brought to redress wrongful civil actions as well. The “central thrust” of an action for malicious prosecution is a right not to be involved in an unjustified litigation.

This Note suggests that the confusion in this area of law derives from the use of the language of malicious prosecution tort law to describe what really amounts to a Fourth Amendment seizure claim under § 1983. There is no constitutional right to be …

Welcome To Trump's Ice Age: Violations Of Undocumented Immigrants' Fourth Amendment Rights During Workplace Raids, Gianni Piantini

St. Thomas Law Review

This Comment addresses the implications of ICE agents violating Fourth Amendment rights of undocumented immigrants who have been unreasonably seized during workplace raids. Part II discusses how the Fourth Amendment protections extend to the workplace, as well as the influence of ICE on immigration law and how the Fourth Amendment applies in the immigration context. Part IH addresses how Trump's antiimmigrant oratory has encouraged ICE to conduct workplace raids, which result in egregious violations of the Fourth Amendment. Part III further addresses the effect of the holding in Delgado on workplace raids and how ICE has conducted the raids in …

Right Result, Wrong Reason: Why The Intent Requirement In Florida V. Jardines Trespasses On The Clarity Of The Fourth Amendment, Heather Baxter

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Matters More: Preserving A Fundamental Right To Privacy Or Tampering With Another's Dignity Through Searches Because Of "Reasonable Suspicion", Darianne De Leon

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Value Of Deviance: Understanding Contextual Privacy, Timothy Casey

Faculty Scholarship

Recent decisions by the Supreme Court in Carpenter v. United States and the Illinois Supreme Court in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corporation signal a shift in the traditional understanding of what exactly is protected by a privacy interest. Carpenter distinguished between a police officer’s observation of a suspect’s location and a perpetual catalogue of a person’s movements obtained through cell site location information (CSLI). The pervasive and vast quantity of information from CSLI exposed a protected privacy interest. In Rosenbach, the Illinois Supreme Court found the unique and personal quality of biometric information meant that consent and disclosure requirements …

Reforming Institutions: The Judicial Function In Bankruptcy And Public Law Litigation, Kathleen G. Noonan, Jonathan C. Lipson, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

Public law litigation (PLL) is among the most important and controversial types of dispute that courts face. These civil class actions seek to reform public agencies such as police departments, prison systems, and child welfare agencies that have failed to meet basic statutory or constitutional obligations. They are controversial because critics assume that judicial intervention is categorically undemocratic or beyond judicial expertise.

This Article reveals flaws in these criticisms by comparing the judicial function in PLL to that in corporate bankruptcy, where the value and legitimacy of judicial intervention are better understood and more accepted. Our comparison shows that judicial …

The End Of Intuition-Based High-Crime Areas, Ben Grunwald, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

In 2000, the Supreme Court held in Illinois v. Wardlow that a suspect’s presence in a “high-crime area” is relevant in determining whether an officer has reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigative stop. Despite the importance of the decision, the Court provided no guidance about what that standard means, and over fifteen years later, we still have no idea how police officers understand and apply it in practice. This Article conducts the first empirical analysis of Wardlow by examining data on over two million investigative stops conducted by the New York Police Department from 2007 to 2012.

Our results suggest …

Implicit Racial Bias And Students' Fourth Amendment Rights, Jason P. Nance

UF Law Faculty Publications

Tragic acts of school violence such as what occurred in Columbine, Newtown, and, more recently, in Parkland and Santa Fe, provoke intense feelings of anger, fear, sadness, and helplessness. Understandably, in response to these incidents (and for other reasons), many schools have intensified the manner in which they monitor and control students. Some schools rely on combinations of security measures such as metal detectors; surveillance cameras; drug-sniffing dogs; locked and monitored gates; random searches of students’ belongings, lockers, and persons; and law enforcement officers. Not only is there little empirical evidence that these measures actually make schools safer, but overreliance …