Unmarried Mothers in the Municipal Court of Philadelphia.Bureau of Municipal Research of Philadelphia

The Supreme Court has cast judicial warrants as the Fourth Amendment gold standard for regulating police discretion. It has embraced a "warrant preference" on the premise that requiring police to obtain advance judicial approval for searches and seizures encourages accurate identification of evidence and suspects while minimizing interference with constitutional rights. The Court and commentators have overlooked the fact that most outstanding warrants do none of these things. Most outstanding warrants are what this article terms "non-compliance warrants": summarily issued arrest warrants for failures to comply with a court or police order. State and local courts are profligate in issuing such warrants for minor offenses. For example, the Department of Justice found that the municipal court in Ferguson, Missouri issued one warrant for every two of its residents. When issued as wantonly as this, warrants are dangerous because they generate police discretion rather than restrain it. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has, most recently in Utah v. Strieff, treated non-compliance warrants as if no different from the traditional warrants that gave rise to the Fourth Amendment warrant preference. This article argues that non-compliance warrants pose unique dangers, constitutional and otherwise. Non-compliance warrants create powerful incentives for the police to conduct unconstitutional stops, particularly in poor and minority neighborhoods. Their enforcement also generates race and class feedback loops. Outstanding warrants beget arrests and arrests beget more warrants. Over time, this dynamic amplifies race and class disparities in criminal justice. The article concludes by prescribing a Fourth Amendment remedy to deter unconstitutional warrant checks. More importantly, the article identifies steps state and local courts might take to stem the continued proliferation of non-compliance warrants.

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Cardiovascular disease in people born to unmarried mothers in two historical periods: The Helsinki Birth Cohort Study 1934–1944

Scandinavian Journal of Public Health ◽

10.1177/14034948211019792 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 140349482110197

Author(s):

H. Maiju Mikkonen ◽

Minna K. Salonen ◽

Antti Häkkinen ◽

Clive Osmond ◽

Johan G. Eriksson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cardiovascular Disease ◽

Cohort Study ◽

World War Ii ◽

Birth Cohort ◽

Birth Cohort Study ◽

World War ◽

Unmarried Mothers ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Married Mothers ◽

Historical Periods

Aims:Socio-economic conditions in early life are important contributors to cardiovascular disease – the leading cause of mortality globally – in later life. We studied coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke in adulthood among people born out of wedlock in two historical periods: before and during World War II in Finland. Methods: We compared offspring born out of wedlock before (1934–1939) and during (1940–1944) World War II with the offspring of married mothers in the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study. The war affected the position of unmarried mothers in society. We followed the study subjects from 1971 to 2014 and identified deaths and hospital admissions from CHD and stroke. Data were analysed using a Cox regression, adjusting for other childhood and adulthood socio-economic circumstances. Results: The rate of out-of-wedlock births was 240/4052 (5.9%) before World War II and 397/9197 (4.3%) during World War II. Among those born before World War II, out-of-wedlock birth was associated with an increased risk of stroke (hazard ratio (HR)=1.44; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.00–2.07) and CHD (HR=1.37; 95% CI 1.02–1.86). Among those born out of wedlock during World War II, the risks of stroke (HR=0.89; 95% CI 0.58–1.36) and CHD (HR=0.70; 95% CI 0.48=1.03) were similar to those observed for the offspring of married mothers. The p-values for interaction of unmarried×World War II were ( p=0.015) for stroke and ( p=0.003) for CHD. Conclusions: In a society in which marriage is normative, being born out of wedlock is an important predictor of lifelong health disadvantage. However, this may change rapidly when societal circumstances change, such as during a war.

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