Police, Vehicles & the Fourth Amendment Part One: Supreme Court Cases

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Byron L. Warnken
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Fourth Amendment ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Police Vehicles

Predicting Supreme Court Cases Probabilistically: The Search and Seizure Cases, 1962-1981

1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 891-900 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Segal
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Preliminary Analysis ◽  
Fourth Amendment ◽  
Search And Seizure ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Legal Model

The overwhelming concensus of Fourth Amendment scholars is that the Supreme Court's sea and seizure cases are a mess. This article proposes that the confusion arises from the manner in which the cases were studied, not from the decisions themselves. A legal model with variables that me the prior justification of the search, the nature of the intrusion, and a few mitigating circumstance used to explain the Court's decisions on the reasonableness of a given search or seizure. The parameters are estimated through probit.The results show that the search and seizure cases are much more ordered than had commonly been believed. Virtually all of the estimates are as expected. Additionally, the Court is shown to act favorably toward the federal government than toward the states. Preliminary analysis suggests the model has predictive as well as explanatory value.

scholarly journals An Examination of the Coherence of Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Kahn-Fogel
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Fourth Amendment ◽  
The Body ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Systematic Evaluation ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Lower Court ◽  
Wrong Answer ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Lower Courts

For decades, scholars have routinely attacked the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence as an incoherent mess, impossible for lower courts to follow. These scholars have based their claims almost entirely on qualitative analysis of the Court’s opinions. This Article presents the first systematic evaluation of the consensus view of Fourth Amendment law as incoherent. The primary method I use to evaluate the coherence of the body of law is an assessment of lower court performance on Fourth Amendment issues the Supreme Court would later resolve. Because the Supreme Court’s agreement with lower courts likely reflects, at least in part, the clarity of the Supreme Court’s previous pronouncements, a high rate of agreement between lower courts and the Supreme Court would tend to suggest the coherence of the field. On the other hand, if the Court concludes most lower courts got the wrong answer to a Fourth Amendment question, that conclusion suggests either a lack of clarity in the Court’s precedent or that the Court simply shifted course after having issued seemingly straightforward pronouncements in the past. Either of these possibilities would suggest a kind of incoherence or instability in Fourth Amendment law. I examine lower court decisions dealing with issues the Supreme Court subsequently addressed over the course of twenty Supreme Court terms. Because Supreme Court cases tend to deal with the most difficult, divisive issues, I also compare the frequency with which the Court has felt compelled to review Fourth Amendment questions to the rate at which the Court has dealt with other important constitutional issues.

Supreme Court Cases

1997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Bulzomi ◽  
Robert M. Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Court Cases

Dangerous Warrants

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nirej Sekhon
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Fourth Amendment ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Police Discretion ◽  
Accurate Identification ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Local Courts ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Municipal Court

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.

Constitutional Limitations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Burris ◽  
Micah L. Berman ◽  
Matthew Penn, and ◽  
Tara Ramanathan Holiday
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Health It ◽  
State Action ◽  
Substantive Due Process ◽  
State Action Doctrine ◽  
Due Process Rights

This chapter describes “due process,” a Constitutional restriction on governmental actions that impact individuals, in the context of public health. It outlines the doctrines of procedural and substantive due process, including the legal tests that courts apply to decide whether individuals’ due process rights have been violated. It uses examples from Supreme Court cases that have defined due process in the context of public health, including those that struggle to define the scope of reproductive rights. It also examines two cases where public health principles were raised as a justification for governmental action: one about involuntary sterilization and one about Ebola. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the “state action doctrine” that defines which public health actors may be challenged on due process grounds.

Students’ Individual Rights: Safety and Privacy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
School Safety ◽  
Fourth Amendment ◽  
Privacy Rights ◽  
Discipline Problems ◽  
School Officials ◽  
Privacy Concerns ◽  
Safety Issues ◽  
Student Privacy

This chapter addresses problems faced by educators attempting to provide their students with a safe and effective learning environment. Drugs and weapons in many schools pose serious safety and discipline problems, while threats of violence from sources outside the school have become increasingly serious. Educators deal with these problems while students enjoy Fourth Amendment rights. Often the privacy rights of students conflict with the interests of school officials. The task of the law is to accommodate the respective interests of educators and students. The discussion herein addresses some of these issues of student privacy and safety. The examination of school privacy focuses on the extent to which the Fourth Amendment’s protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures” applies to those attending public schools. The Fourth Amendment discussion illustrates the often-conflicting obligation of educators to keep those in their charge safe while at the same time respecting student privacy concerns. School safety interests also exist outside the context of the Fourth Amendment as illustrated by strategies to keep schools safe from threats such as those dramatically manifested by school shootings killing multiple students. Some such strategies, along with discussion of the dangers of cell phones in schools, will be reviewed in this chapter. The Fourth Amendment section considers the relevant U.S. Supreme Court decisions addressing student rights under the Fourth Amendment, as well as reviewing lower court cases treating issues left open by the Supreme Court. The chapter concludes by highlighting school safety issues not directly involving the Fourth Amendment.

Confronting Forensic Pathologists

2021 ◽  
pp. 192536212110325
Author(s):  
Victor W. Weedn
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Forensic Pathology ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Forensic Pathologist ◽  
Sixth Amendment ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
Forensic Scientists

Background: The Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause gives defendants a right to confront their accusers. Method: U.S. Supreme Court cases that interpreted this right as applied to forensic scientists were reviewed. Results: Melendez-Diaz, Bullcoming, and Williams examined constitutional rights to confront forensic scientists. Lower courts have specifically examined their application to forensic pathology. Whether autopsy reports are considered “testimonial” varies among jurisdictions and has not been definitively settled. Defendants are generally able to compel testimony of forensic pathologists. Where the forensic pathologist is truly unavailable, the surrogate expert should be in a position to render an independent opinion.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document