...The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution limits the power of law enforcement to arrest people and search or seize their property without “probable cause.” This amendment protects people’s privacy and freedom against government intrusions. It was ratified along with the rest of the Bill Of Rights. December 1791 to the Bill Of Rights. It was added for a few reasons. People were scared of the government having too much power. Under British colonial rule, soldiers could go into anyone’s house they wanted, and it wasn’t against the law. Officials could also search virtually any home they liked at any time and for any reason. Since many people in the colonies stole things as well and they didn’t want government officials coming in,...
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... The fourth amendment | The fourth amendment Like many other areas of American law the fourth amendment finds its history rooted in English law. Which basically states a man's home is his castle. The fourth amendment is part of the Bill of Rights with guards against unreasonable search and seizures it also requires that a Warrant be judicially issued as well as there has to be probable cause. It was adopted during the American Revolution. Search and seizures including arrest should be limited to the scope of the Warrant with specific areas are items to be searched or a specific person arrested. The fourth amendment protects the home, papers and effects against unreasonable search and seizures. There are a few exceptions to this law one if the person gives consent to search no warrant is required. Another exception is if an officer sees something in plain view. Open fields such as pastors open water would be searched without warrant because they're open there is no expectation of privacy. Computers and privacy Over the last decade, courts decided whether the government can access evidence of illegal activity stored on digital technology without violating the Fourth Amendment. Many cases discuss whether incriminating evidence stored by an employee in workplace computers is protected under the reasonable expectation of privacy. In a majority of cases, employees do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy for electronic communications at work. the Fourth Amendment...
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...In his pamphlet titled The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, colonial Massachusetts lawyer and political activist James Otis argues that supreme legislative and supreme executive power must have a place in every commonwealth, however, those powers remain in the whole body of the people; furthermore, in the event that any administrators were to deviate from truth, justice and equity, they verge towards tyranny, and are to be opposed.1 The fate of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution can be construed as an example supporting Otis’ argument. Nearly every facet of political thought in the United States has proven to be far more malleable than its original authors had intended, an excellent example of this is the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The text of the Fourth Amendment appears seemingly straightforward; the first clause of the amendment states that all searches and seizures must be reasonable, the second clause of the amendment specifies requirements for when courts may issue a warrant in support of a search or seizure.2 Surprisingly, the concept that warrantless searches and seizures are unconstitutional or that warrants are required for all searches and seizures is relatively modern. Prior to this mindset of warrantless search and seizures being unconstitutional, law enforcement was allowed to do a search and seize items as long as their actions could be construed as being reasonable. In the event that the searches...
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...Our founding fathers in their quest to set forth protections of citizens enacted the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. (GPOaccess.gov/constitution) The purpose behind this amendment is the people have the right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”. At face value you may believe that this amendment provides you with total protection from an illegal search and seizure. In this paper I will demonstrate that the Fourth Amendment does not cover searches that occur in open fields or for items that are observed in plain view. In order to form an opinion on the constitutionality of a warrantless search you first need to determine what an open field is and what would be considered private property. This is known as the Open Fields Doctrine. (Wetterer, 1998) Items in open fields are not protected by the Fourth Amendment so they can be seized by an officer without a warrant or probable cause. Open fields do not fall within any of these categories. What does “open fields” exactly mean? Open fields encompass any open, undeveloped property that is not intimately used for dwelling (including curtilage) or business. The main residence on a piece of land, any outbuildings closely connected with and in close proximity to it, and the land immediately surrounding the residence are all considered to be within the curtilage of the land and are areas in which there is a reasonable expectation of privacy...
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...The Fourth Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights which was established in the seventeenth and eighteenth century English common law. Aside from the rest of the amendments in the Bill of Rights the Fourth Amendment can be traced back to a strong public reaction from some cases back in the 1760s. Two of these cases happened in England and one case happened in the colonies. These cases involved some pamphleteers who would pass out pamphlets to the public in order to spread their word around. These pamphlets however ridiculed the king and his ministers. After finding this out the king issued warrants to have the pamphleteer’s homes ransacked and stripped of all their books and papers. Even back then the pamphleteers knew that their rights were violated and fought back. They stated that the searches were against them, similar to a “personal attack” rather than an attack on their information they held within their homes. This is an extremely early case dealing with search and seizure, if not one of the first cases, in which the individuals being searched stood up for themselves because they felt the actions taken against them were unjust. However, since these cases are dated so far back in history it is hard to understand whether our founder fathers could have foreseen any problems with the amendment in the future, and everything that applies under the fourth amendment today. At the end of the eighteenth century this was dealing with pamphlets that the king did not like and tried...
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...FOURTH AMENDMENT Protecting the rights of citizens and law enforcement is very important and the Fourth Amendment does that. The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. This Amendment is not a guarantee against all searches and seizures, but only those that are deemed unreasonable under the law. There are two important factors when a search is considered being reasonable. The first factor is whether the search is an intrusion on an individual's Fourth Amendment rights and the second is whether public safety an issue. Law officials have to make a tough decision when the correct time and place is conduct a search. The extent to which an individual is protected by the Fourth Amendment depends, in part, on the location of the search or seizure (Smith, 1999). An example is in the case of Minnesota v. Carter, when a police officer looked into a window of an apartment and observed bagging of white powder. The officer called back to the station to obtain a search warrant. In the meantime, the suspects that the police officer was watching, Carter and Johns, had left the apartment with some of the powder. The police followed them and pulled them over and searched the car and then searched the apartment. Carter and Johns were charged with controlled substance crimes. The two argued that the officer’s observation was an unreasonable search and all evidence was inadmissible as “fruit of the poisonous tree” because...
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...1. Private Search of Immobile Vehicle The fourth amendment provides individuals with protection from searches and seizures that may be deemed unreasonable. However, it is applicable when such searches and seizures have been carried out by state or federal officials or agents of the government (Schulhofer, 2012). Such agents would include the local police officers, Border Patrol Agents, and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, among other government security agents. As such, any searches that may be made on the private property by private citizens or private security officers are not subject to the Fourth Amendment. Thus, I as the Information Security Specialist of the Makestuff Company or Mr. Yourprop’s supervisor can conduct searches on the vehicle of Mr. Yourprop currently parked in the parking lot without violating the Fourth Amendment since we are not government officials or representatives. The evidence that would be obtained from the search, if any, can be handed over to the police as evidence against Mr. Yourprop for violation of the Intellectual Property Law. In State v. Buswell, the Minnesota Supreme Court held that the protection of the Fourth Amendment was limited to government action and thus any private searches conducted by private citizens were not covered by the exclusionary rule. Thus, if evidence is seized through a private search, then it can be handed over to the police to be applied in a court of law as evidence for an offense (State v. Buswell...
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...The Fourth Amendment The Fourth Amendment is the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. This amendment basically states that we as Americans have to right to be secure as people, in our houses, and within our own private documents. It also protects us against unjust and unfair searches and seizures of our own private possessions. It also states that no warrant to allow these actions will be given unless there is probable cause that is backed up by oath or confirmation, specifically stating what is to be searched, or seized. VERNONIA SCHOOL DISTRICT 47J, PETITIONER v. WAYNE ACTON This was a case between a school district versus a student athlete who refused to take a mandatory drug test imposed on the athletes by the district. The issue started when school officials started noticing more and more students using drugs, and acting out in class, along with delinquent behavior. They began to glamorize drugs, and often boast about using them. Until finally the school realized that the interscholastic athletics were in a complete state of rebellion. They believed that the use of drugs was in turn, the source of the problem that was occurring. They decided that the athletes were a main source...
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...The Fourth Amendment in the News Vincent Luckey CJA/364 May 13, 2013 Keith Lima The Fourth Amendment in the News Balancing privacy versus government interests is a challenging dilemma concerning the Fourth Amendment. Battles between advocates of due process and crime control occur in every state of the union often extending beyond the criminal trial into the arena of appeals. The United States (U.S.) Supreme Court uses its power of judicial review to decide if laws by the executive branch and legislative branch are constitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court also uses its power of judicial review to analyze various lower court decisions for the appropriate application of inherent constitutional rights. This news article analysis will discuss the requirements for search warrants, arrest warrants, and warrant exceptions in relation to probable cause under the Fourth Amendment. In a news article from the Wall Street Journal published on April 15, 2013, The U.S. Supreme Court decides to review the Maryland Supreme Court’s decision on the Maryland v. King case. The case involves a state law, known as the Maryland’s DNA Collection Act (DNA Act) that grants police with the power to obtain DNA samples from arrestees of violent crimes before a trial is given (Bravin, 2013). “In 2009, Alonzo Jay King, Jr. was arrested in Maryland on first- and second-degree assault charges” (Cowen & Park, 2013, para. 3). The police detectives obtained King’s DNA sample when he was in custody...
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...Fourth Amendment Summary Jesus Lozano-McNeely Alonso Butts, Blair Smith CJA/364 Criminal Procedures University of Phoenix Mr. Dennis Dougan September 15, 2014 Fourth Amendment Summary Team C will define and explain the common law background of the Fourth Amendment. This paper will break down the basic terminology of the Fourth Amendment in which protects persons, house, paper and effects. From unreasonable search and seizures. Search warrant on a Person A search warrant gives the law enforcement officers permission to search for certain evidence in a specific place. Without a search warrant, police officers may not search a place without its owner’s consent or if the evidence is in plain view. It is supported by the Fourth Amendment “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized (Law. Cornell 2012)”. A search warrant is granted by courts where a judge needs to sign of it if he or she thinks the warrant is necessary. The officers must have probable cause when trying to obtain a warrant. When officers put in for a warrant, judges may issue the search warrant. To obtain a warrant, an officer must show that the search is justified and should have sworn statements that support their...
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...The most important amendment is the fourth amendment because the it says, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” It is basically saying that they wrote this law because tax collectors were abusing their powers by searching the colonist homes for illegal goods, and these general warrants allowed any messenger or officer to search a suspected place without any evidence. It also allowed them to arrest people without even saying what they did wrong or showing evidence. Also, Virginia banned the use of general warrants later because they were scared of the generals doing that and if they were next. Later on, it became the fourth Amendment in the Bill of rights. In my opinion the fourth amendment is the most important because there were people who were getting arrested or generals that were invading people's houses for no reason. This amendment is used today because that means that in order for a police officer to arrest or search someone's house, they will need...
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...Ryan Fortier Due: 4/18/18 Case 2 Horton vs California Fourth Amendment: Plain View Doctrine Facts: As he entered his garage, Erwin Wallaker was robbed of jewelry and cash by two men, one armed with a machine gun and one with a stun gun. Wallaker heard enough of the conversation to identify Horton's voice. The police submitted a request for a warrant to search for both weapons and the proceeds of the robbery, but the magistrate who issued the warrant only authorized a search for the proceeds of the robbery. During the subsequent search, the police found weapons and other items which were not listed on the warrant. None of the stolen property was found. Horton was charged with the robbery and moved to suppress the weapons as being illegally...
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...The fourth amendment is like America’s nap, they don’t get to have it and everyone becomes cranky. The fourth amendment is what gives America the little amount of privacy and authority that they do have. The Bill of Rights in 1789 were then added into the constitution so that the government could not have a huge amount of control. The Fourth Amendment keeps the American citizens acknowledged with why they are searched or their properties may be searched. A warrant must be shown to the citizen, rather than the cops just walking into their houses or anything else in their possessions. Warrants tell what they will be searching for specifically, but if anything, else is found it will not be permitted into court. Barack Obama is now considered an...
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...The Fourth Amendment is a part of the Bill of Rights, which protects a citizen’s right to freedom and liberty. The Fourth Amendment was added to the United States Constitution on December 15, 1791. As we know the Fourth Amendment is the right of people to be secure in their persons, house, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. “ The history surrounding the Fourth Amendment provides evidence that the protection against unreasonable searches and seizures was connected to the law prohibiting interference with another possession...
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...I strongly believe that students should not have their private property searched. Just because a backpack is brought to school doesn’t make it school property. Another reason is that the Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable searches. Officials that do this are sick people and they have no right to look in student’s property. Just because I bring a backpack to school doesn’t make it school property. The school gives me a textbook and I take it home, now it’s on my property. Can I do anything I want with that book though? No, because it would be destruction of School Property. You can’t search my backpack and cause destruction in it and not fix it. It’s just the same thing as there textbook and laptops. Searching the student’s things is an invasion of privacy and the student my feel harassed and embarrassed. The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect are property and we are to...
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