Essay: The Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution was included as a component of the Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791. This amendment is known for shielding individuals from the seeking of their homes and private property without appropriately executed court orders. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives, “the privilege of the general population to be secure in their people, houses, papers, and impacts, against absurd inquiries and seizures, should not be abused, and no Warrants might issue, but rather upon reasonable justification, bolstered by Oath or assertion. The fourth amendment, search and seizure was designed to protect personal privacy during searches and detentions from police officials. (Thomson Reuters, 2018) According to the U.S constitution every citizen not matter their race, beliefs, or gender has a right to be free from unreasonable government intrusion. Free from government intrusion because as an individual there is legitimate expectation of privacy. Entitled privacy inside of their homes, clothing, purses, luggage, vehicles, or place of business, etc. Depicting the place to be sought, and the people or things to be grabbed.” a definitive objective of this arrangement is to ensure individual’s’ entitlement to protection and flexibility from self-assertive administrative interruptions. (Thomson Reuters 2018)
The Fourth Amendment has its underlying foundations somewhere down in the core of English customary law. In Seymane 1604, the court perceived that the King did not have boundless specialist to enter his subjects homes yet that under certain lawful procedures where such interruptions were fundamental, the operators needed to pursue proper method.(Swindle Law Group 2018) The English citizenry confronted a phenomenal ascent in inquiries and seizures utilizing general warrants. In the case of Entick v. Carrington, Charles Pratt, and first Earl Camden reached the legitimate decision that an inquiry did by the respondent for the sake of the ruler was unlawful. The general warrant approved the seizure of the Plaintiff’s papers and not specific ones, and that the warrant needed reasonable justification. This case turned into the point of reference whereupon all other criminal and common cases under precedent-based law are resolved. The United States Congress perceived the need to guarantee residents that their entitlement to protection would not be damaged.
Courts generally use a two area test to choose if, at the period of the request, a prosecutor had a genuine want for security in the place or things looked for. For example, a man who uses an open restroom envisions that it will not be spied upon and by far most would see that it sensible. (Nolo 2014) Along these lines, the foundation of a covered camcorder by the police in an open restroom would be seen as a request and would be subject to the Fourth Amendment’s need of sensibility. Another example would be if an officer stops a vehicle while talking with the driver happens to see a weapon on the explorer arrange, there’s been no chase under the Fourth Amendment this is the fact that the driver considered the seat to be a private place. The Court held that the physical testing by the police of the sack’s outside for verification of goods set up a request subject to Fourth Amendment. (Nolo 2014)
If the Fourth Amendment is disregarded various things can happen. For example, the exclusionary rule. If the court finds out that an outlandish pursuit happened, any proof seized because of it can’t be utilized as immediate proof against the respondent in a criminal arraignment. This rule, set up by the U.S. Preeminent Court in 1961, has come to be known as the exclusionary rule. Numerous individuals scrutinize the exclusionary decide on the ground that it unreasonably releases the criminal free. The standard’s supporters contend that barring wrongfully seized proof is important to prevent police from directing unlawful hunts. As indicated by this prevention contention, the police are less inclined to direct ill advised pursuits if the subsequent proof can’t be utilized to convict the litigant. This rule is vividly known as the “product of the toxic tree” principle. The tree is the proof that the police wrongfully seize in any case; the organic product is the second age result of the illicitly seized proof. Both tree and natural product are ordinarily forbidden at preliminary.(Nolo 2014)
The State of Massachusetts was the principal province to make laws that ensured the security of the citizenry. The 1756 laws banned the utilization of general warrants which had represented a difficult issue particularly after endeavors to establish the Excise Act of 1754. James Otis spoke to a gathering of traders who requested of the court to look at the issues of general warrants and writs of help. In spite of the fact that the court decided for the law, Otis won the race to the Massachusetts Colonial Legislature where he assumed a critical job in passing enactment that required writs of help to be issued by judges or judges. John Adams, George Washington’s Vice President named Otis’ splendid assault of the English general Warrants as ”the start of the American Revolution . Virginia discharged the Virginia Declaration of Rights which turned into the format for the Fourth Amendment.
Private interruptions not acting in the shade of administrative expert are exempted from the Fourth Amendment. The Founders trusted that flexibility from government interruption into one’s house was a characteristic right (one allowed from God) and crucial to freedom. The possibility that natives ought to be shielded from irrational hunts and seizures backpedals far into English history. In 1604, Sir Edward Coke initially recognized this privilege. He said that “The place of each one is to him as his château and post, too for his safeguard against damage and savagery with respect to his rest.”
Reasonable suspicion to believe the driver broke the law is typically why a vehicle stop occurs. It is considered a seizure for the Fourth Amendment when police stop a vehicle. For vehicle searches to be justifiable the initial stop must have been lawful. There is only a number of limited circumstances such as immigration, DUI checkpoints, and roadblocks, which allow law enforcements the ability to detain vehicles without reasonable suspicion. A traffic violation does not give the police the right to search the inside of an automobile. There must be probable cause, therefore preventing in some cases unreasonable search and seizures.
While an individual is being searched and seized by the police there is a “safeguard” that prevents unlawfully seized items from being able to be used as evidence in cases. However that “safeguard” is often overruled by the courts and the evidence found by police officers after illegal stops may be used. The evidence can be used if the officers conducted their searches after learning that the defendants had outstanding arrest warrants. An investigation by Post reports 2,000 warrants were served by the police between January 2013 and January 2015, but only 284 cases, roughly fourteen percent were the result of police arresting someone on the street for possession of drugs or a weapon.
In a system supposedly designed to be fair and be equal to all, it is no secret which group of individuals are targeted when it comes to suspicious activity leading to unreasonable searches and seizure. After being searched, seized, and arrested for the illegal activity in D.C a follow up with a warrant to search the residence is conducted. Often the follow ups are the black communities the Post reported. The follow up warrant search to the resident is based on training and experience for police and not actual evidence pointing to the criminal activity. Believing that if they caught someone on the street with illegal substances or weapons, searching their home would lead them to a much bigger criminal case.
As stated in an article in The Washington Post the police in D.C are acting on very little or scant evidence in pursuit of illegal activity happening. Specifically drugs and guns often resulted in the wrong homes being raided and or only small amounts of drugs being found. There is no real case being made. More than often damage to ones property from the searches occur without an explanation.
Forty percent of the cases police leave empty handed (The District Police’s Unreasonable Searches and Seizures). Alec Karakatsanis, an attorney is challenging this specific practice of the courts. Questioning whether these warrants are being thoroughly and diligently reviewed or not. “They have turned any arrest anywhere in the city into an automatic search of a home, and that simply cannot be,” said Alec Karakatsanis. In circumstances like this where policing tactics are leading to unreasonable search and seizure is occurring, it arises a question.
The State of Massachusetts was the main province to make laws that secured the protection of the citizenry. The 1756 laws prohibited the utilization of general warrants which had represented a difficult issue particularly after endeavors to authorize the Excise Act of 1754. James Otis spoke to a gathering of shippers who requested of the court to look at the issues of general warrants and writs of help. In spite of the fact that the court decided for the law, Otis won the decision to the Massachusetts Colonial Legislature where he assumed a noteworthy part in passing enactment that required writs of help to be issued by judges or judges. John Adams, George Washington’s Vice President named Otis’ splendid assault of the English general Warrants as ”the start of the American Revolution’ (Adams, Charles). Virginia discharged the Virginia Declaration of Rights which turned into the layout for the Fourth Amendment.
Search, The Supreme Court in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S 347(1967) ruled that the definition of search as when a person’s privacy is in the search. The facts of the ruling were that as per the definition, a search did occur when the government wiretapped a telephone booth. This became the threshold for jurisprudence of this Amendment, because the court analysis ends if no search and seizure occurs.
Seizure, The fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable seizure of any person or personal property without proper authorization i.e. a warrant. In legal terms, seizure of property is when there is significant interference by the government with an individual’s possessions.(Weiss 2018) The exception to this rule is that a seizure does not happen when the government questions an individual in a public place. The person is said to be seized if his freedom of movement is infringed.
Amid the Colonial period, the King of England took a gander at the American settlements as basically a money related speculation. England passed various income gathering bills went for producing however much cash from the pilgrims as could be expected. Clearly, the homesteaders disliked this demonstration by the King and started carrying operations so as to go around the custom assessments forced by the British Crown. Accordingly, King George started the utilization of the advantageously worded “writs of help.” These were legitimate court orders that were to a great degree wide and general in extension.
English specialists could acquire a writ of help to look any property they accepted may contain booty merchandise. They could really enter somebody’s property or home with no notice and with no reason. Specialists could grill anybody about their utilization of customized products and drive collaboration of any individual. These sorts of inquiries and seizures turned into a shocking attack against the general population of the settlements.
To have standing to claim protection under the Fourth Amendment, one must first demonstrate an expectation of privacy, which is not merely a subjective expectation in mind but an expectation that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable under the circumstances. For instance, warrantless searches of private premises are mostly prohibited unless there are justifiable exceptions; on the other hand, a warrantless seizure of abandoned property usually does not violate the Fourth Amendment.(Weiss 2018) Moreover, the Fourth Amendment protection does not expand to governmental intrusion and information collection conducted upon open fields. An Expectation of privacy in an open field is not considered reasonable. However, there are some exceptions where state authorities granted protection to open fields.
In the case Mapp v. Ohio, three Cleveland police officers arrived at the petitioner’s residence pursuant to information that a bombing suspect was hiding out there and that paraphernalia regarding the bombing was hidden there. The officers knocked and asked to enter, but the petitioner refused to admit them without a search warrant after speaking with her attorney. The officers left and returned approximately three hours later with what purported to be a search warrant. A Warrant-Under the Amendment states that police and government agents cannot search and seize evidence without proper and written authorization from a court of law. This authorization must state the reasons why the search is necessary, and the items to be seized. The exceptions of this are if the object or item is in clear view, or using the open fields doctrine, exigent or reaction circumstances, motor vehicle exception and searches incident or related to a lawful arrest.
It is not applicable where consent is given by the individual. When the petitioner failed to answer the door, the officers forcibly entered the residence. The petitioner’s attorney arrived and was not permitted to see the petitioner or to enter the residence. The petitioner demanded to see the search warrant and when presented, she grabbed it and placed it in her shirt. Police struggled with the petitioner and eventually recovered the warrant. The petitioner was then placed under arrest for being belligerent and taken to her bedroom on the second floor of the residence. The officers then conducted a widespread search of the residence wherein obscene materials were found in a trunk in the basement.
The petitioner was ultimately convicted of possessing these materials. Mapp argued that her Fourth Amendment rights had been violated by the search, and eventually took her appeal to United States Supreme Court. At the time of the case unlawfully seized evidence was banned from federal courts but not state courts. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-3 vote in favor of Mapp. The high court said evidence seized unlawfully, without a search warrant, could not be used in criminal prosecutions in state courts.
In the case Weeks v. United States 232 U.S. 383 (1914) police entered the home of Fremont Weeks and seized papers which were used to convict him of transporting lottery tickets through the mail. This was done without a search warrant. Weeks took action against the police and petitioned for the return of his private possessions. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the seizure of items from Weeks’ residence directly violated his constitutional rights. The Court also held that the government’s refusal to return Weeks’ possessions violated the Fourth Amendment. To allow private documents to be seized and then held as evidence against citizens would have meant that the protection of the Fourth Amendment declaring the right to be secure against such searches and seizures would be of no value whatsoever.
This was the first application of what eventually became known as the “exclusionary rule.”
Stop and frisk is when police temporarily detain somebody and pat down their outer clothing when there are specific articulable facts leading a reasonable police officer to believe a person is armed and dangerous.(Board Editorial 2016) It is not necessary for the officer to articulate or identify a specific crime they think is being committed, only that a set of factual circumstances exist that would lead a reasonable officer to have a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is occurring. Reasonable suspicion is one step below probable cause and one step above a hunch. (Weiss 2018) A “frisk” by definition is a type of search that requires a lawful stop.
Stop and Frisk is a separate act, but in practice a suspect who refuses to answer while being questioned and stopped is known to be providing the officer with sufficient justification to continue and frisk. A frisk should not be for anything other than a dangerous weapon or contraband. However, if other evidence, like a suspected drug container, is felt, it can be seized by the officer under the “plain feel” doctrine. The test for plain feel is that the item’s contraband nature be “immediately apparent”.
The Terry v Ohio 392 U.S 1 (No. 67) the case took place on December 12th of 1976 a detective (McFadden) was observing two strangers on a street corner. He watched them proceed back and forth. McFadden proceeded to watch the two strangers for a count of about 24 times. A third man joined the two strangers, but he quickly left according to Detective McFadden. Suspecting the men were up to no good after watching them, he assumed they were suspicious and planned a criminal attack.
McFadden then decided he would follow the men. Approaching them making them come to a stop he identified who he was as a policeman, he then asked the three men to identify themselves. They mumbled allowing justification for McFadden to then began to frisk, patting down one of the men.(Find Law 2018) During the pat down of his outside clothing he found a pistol. He then ordered the three men into the store, removing the coat and then the pistol from the inside of the coat. Ordering the three men to face the wall with their hands raised. He patted down the outer clothing of Chilton and Katz two of the three men and seized a revolver from Chilton’s outside overcoat pocket.(Find Law 2018) The three were taken into custody and to the police station. Petitioner and Chilton were charged with carrying concealed weapons.
The fourth amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures, protects people, not places. It does not apply to the three men, for being a citizen on the street.Terry then filed a claim for invasion of privacy, feeling as if his 4th amendment right was violated and the case lacked evidence because there was no probable cause for the three men to be searched.
The case was heard in the United States Supreme Court and decided on June 10th of 1968. Terry’s claim of the invasion of privacy did not withhold in court. The decision was in a favor of the state, agreeing with the decision McFadden actions were appropriate and that the men were a threat to society. (Find Law 2018 ) McFadden stopping the men prevented a crime from occurring.
Are stop and frisk actions targeted toward a certain race. Is stop and frisk just another way for officers to “racially profile” African Americans. Terry v Ohio is a case that exhibits where stop and frisk was allotted without a real purpose. The three men were monitored vigorously by a detective, the amount of times they walked back and forth were even a counted for , and then stopped and searched. All of these actions were taken because their actions seemed skeptical to the detective that studied their every move.
In a bigger city such as New York stop and frisk tactics used by cops were ruled unconstitutional violated the fourth and 14th Amendment. A Federal Judge, in Manhattan has ruled that New York police violated the Constitution when targeting “the right people” with stop-and-frisk tactics. Minorities were targeted under unreasonable policies encouraging more police stops to combat crime.
U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin wrote in a 195-page decision. “A police department may not target a racially defined group for stops in general—that is, for stops based on suspicions of general criminal wrongdoing—simply because members of that specific group appear frequently in the police department’s suspect data,” she wrote.
Scheindlin found violations of the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. As a remedy, the judge appointed lawyer Peter Zimroth of Arnold & Porter to monitor police conduct. “In light of the very active and public debate on the issues addressed in this opinion—and the passionate positions taken by both sides—it is important to recognize the human toll of unconstitutional stops,” Scheindlin wrote. “While it is true that anyone stop is a limited intrusion in duration and deprivation of liberty, each stop is also a demeaning and humiliating experience. No one should live in fear of being stopped whenever he leaves his home to go about the activities of daily life. Those who are routinely subjected to stops are overwhelmingly people of color, and they are justifiably troubled to be singled out when many of them have done nothing to attract the unwanted attention.” ( Goldstein 2013)
Scheindlin researched showed statistics on 4.4 million police stops made between January 2004 and June 2012, and said a forms database indicated at least 200,000 were made without reasonable suspicion. Officers were pressured to increase their stops, and the city did nothing when the disclosure of information that stops were being made in a racially skewed manner, she composed.( Goldstein 2013) Supervisors routinely reviewed the productivity of officers, but did not review the facts cited to justify such stops to determine whether they were legally sufficient.
“This is a form of racial profiling,” Scheindlin disclosed. “While a person’s race may be important if it fits the description of a particular crime suspect, it is impermissible to subject all members of a racially defined group to heightened police enforcement because some members of that group are criminals. The equal protection clause does not permit race-based suspicion.” According to Scheindlin’s opinion, 52 percent of the 4.4 million police stops were followed by a frisk for weapons. ( Goldstein 2013) A weapon was found after 1.5 percent of those frisks. In 52 percent of those 4.4 million stops, the person stopped was black; in 31 percent the person was Hispanic; and in 10 percent the person was white. Weapons were seized in 1 percent of the stops of blacks; 1.1 percent of the stops of Hispanics; and 1.4 percent of the stops of whites. Contraband other than weapons was seized in 1.8 percent of the stops of blacks; 1.7 percent of the stops of Hispanics; and 2.3 percent of the stops of whites.
Scheindlin illustrated poor police training by citing differing testimony on what constituted “furtive movements” used to justify stops. One officer said it could mean changing direction, walking a certain way, being fidgety, stuttering, looking back and forth, adjusting a hip or belt, grabbing at a pocket, acting a little suspicious, going in and out of a location, and moving into and out of a car too quickly. “If officers believe that the behavior described constitutes furtive movement that justifies a stop,” Scheindlin wrote, “then it is no surprise that stops so rarely produce evidence of criminal activity.” Scheindlin issued her opinion after a two-month bench trial, the New York Times reports. The story calls the decision “a repudiation of a major element in the Bloomberg administration’s crime-fighting legacy.” ( Goldstein 2013)
A 63-year-old African American woman by the name of Sallie Taylor (Washington Post) was one of the searches that went wrong. Police are using faulty data when issuing these resident warrant searches. Her property was damaged, she was held at gunpoint and overall terrified. Little to no explanation on why the police raided her home looking for someone else based off of a search and seizure case. A situation like Ms. Sallie Taylors raises a great concern; innocent people are negatively affected and being troubled by the police and their tactics. (Washington Post) Are there other policing forces in different cities taking advantage of the fourth amendment of search and seizure just in a different manner?
The Plan Sight Doctrine is defined as if a law enforcement officer has a legal right to be in plain sight or can smell parts of illegal contraband; they have the right to seize the contraband or evidence and arrest individuals. However the plain sight doctrine it can be justified. In the case Arizona v Hicks, (1987) No. 85-1027 a bullet fired through the floor of the respondents apartment, injuring the man below. Police entered the home in search for the shooter, for other victims, and for weapons. (Arizona v. Hicks 2018)While there they seized three weapons and discovered a mask. They also noticed two sets of expensive stereo components and a turntable, suspecting they were stolen. Following protocol the officer recorded the numbers and called them in. Learning that the turntable had been taken in an armed robbery, he seized it immediately. In this case a warrantless search must be “strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation.” The court agreed the policeman’s obtaining the serial numbers violated the fourth amendment right. It was unrelated to the reason why he was there, which was the shooting. Ruling in favor of the defendant. (Arizona v. Hicks 2018)
The fourth amendment protects people from the government being able to search and seize. An example when the fourth amendment does not protect your rights is when security personnel ask to seek and search your belongings. For instance, a mall cop may ask to look inside your purse and it is not considered illegal. It is not considered a violation of your rights. If a mall cop finds illegal drugs, the drugs may be turned over to the police and the evidence is admissible in court.