Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Established in Weeks v. United States (1914), this rule holds that evidence obtained as a result of a Fourth Amendment violation is generally inadmissible at criminal trials.
"[3] Semayne's Case acknowledged that the King did not have unbridled authority to intrude on his subjects' dwellings, but recognized that government agents were permitted to conduct searches and seizures under certain conditions when their purpose was lawful and a warrant had been obtained.
[4] The 1760s saw a growth in the intensity of litigation against state officers, who were using general warrants, conducted raids in search of materials relating to John Wilkes's publications.
The most famous of these cases involved John Entick whose home was forcibly entered by the King's Messenger Nathan Carrington, along with others, pursuant to a warrant issued by George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax authorizing them "to make strict and diligent search for ... the author, or one concerned in the writing of several weekly very seditious papers entitled, 'The Monitor or British Freeholder, No 257, 357, 358, 360, 373, 376, 378, and 380'", the search resulting in seizure of printed charts, pamphlets and other materials.
Its creation largely stemmed from the great public outcry over the Excise Act of 1754, which gave tax collectors unlimited powers to interrogate colonists concerning their use of goods subject to customs.
[7] The act also permitted the use of a general warrant known as a writ of assistance, allowing tax collectors to search the homes of colonists and seize "prohibited and uncustomed" goods.
During the five-hour hearing on February 23, 1761, Otis vehemently denounced British colonial policies, including their sanction of general warrants and writs of assistance.
[26] The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence.
Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.
[28] The Bill of Rights originally restricted only the federal government, and went through a long initial phase of "judicial dormancy;"[29] in the words of historian Gordon S. Wood, "After ratification, most Americans promptly forgot about the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
[28] The Supreme Court declared in Berger v. New York (1967) that the Fourth Amendment's protections include "conversation" and is not limited to "persons, houses, papers, and effects".
[36] The New York Court of Appeals observed in 1975: "The basic purpose of the constitutional protections against unlawful searches and seizures is to safeguard the privacy and security of each and every person against all arbitrary intrusions by government.
Therefore, any time an intrusion on the security and privacy of the individual is undertaken with intent to harass or is based upon mere whim, caprice or idle curiosity, the spirit of the Constitution has been violated and the aggrieved party may invoke the exclusionary rule or appropriate forms of civil redress.
"[46]: 1669 The Fourth Amendment typically requires "a neutral and detached authority interposed between the police and the public", and it is offended by "general warrants" and laws that allow searches to be conducted "indiscriminately and without regard to their connection with [a] crime under investigation",[47] for the "basic purpose of the Fourth Amendment, which is enforceable against the States through the Fourteenth, through its prohibition of 'unreasonable' searches and seizures is to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials.
"[49][50] In order for such a warrant to be considered reasonable, it must be supported by probable cause and be limited in scope according to specific information supplied by a person (usually a law enforcement officer) who has sworn by it and is therefore accountable to the issuing court.
[51] The Supreme Court further held in Chandler v. Miller (1997): "To be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, a search ordinarily must be based on individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.
Early 20th-century Court decisions, such as Olmstead v. United States (1928), held that Fourth Amendment rights applied in cases of physical intrusion, but not to other forms of police surveillance (e.g., wiretaps).
[56][58] In Katz, the Supreme Court expanded that focus to embrace an individual's right to privacy, and ruled that a search had occurred when the government wiretapped a telephone booth using a microphone attached to the outside of the glass.
[60] Katz's reasonable expectation of privacy thus provided the basis to rule that the government's intrusion, though electronic rather than physical, was a search covered by the Fourth Amendment, and thus necessitated a warrant.
Carpenter v. United States serves as a landmark case because it slightly narrowed the Third Party Doctrine, thus requiring law enforcement to first obtain a search warrant before receiving CSLI records.
The Court used similar "trespass" reasoning in Florida v. Jardines (2013), to rule that bringing a drug detection dog to sniff at the front door of a home was a search.
[100] The Supreme Court in Berger v. New York (1967) explained that the purpose of the probable cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment is to keep the state out of constitutionally protected areas until it has reason to believe that a specific crime has been or is being committed.
[115] A telling case on this subject is Stoner v. California, in which the Court held that police officers could not rely in good faith upon the apparent authority of a hotel clerk to consent to the search of a guest's room.
"[128] The Court has acknowledged that a doorbell or knocker is typically treated as an invitation, or license, to the public to approach the front door of the home to deliver mail, sell goods, solicit for charities, etc.
[145] In Trupiano v. United States (1948), the Supreme Court held that "a search or seizure without a warrant as an incident to a lawful arrest has always been considered to be a strictly limited right.
"[146] In United States v. Rabinowitz (1950), the Court reversed Trupiano, holding instead that the officers' opportunity to obtain a warrant was not germane to the reasonableness of a search incident to an arrest.
[154][156] The U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fourth and Ninth circuits have ruled that information on a traveler's electronic materials, including personal files on a laptop computer, may be searched at random, without suspicion.
[205][206][207][208][209][210][211] The court granted a preliminary injunction, blocking the collection of phone data for two private plaintiffs[212] and ordered the government to destroy any of their records that have been gathered.
The court stayed the ruling pending a government appeal, recognizing the "significant national security interests at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues.
"[211] However, in ACLU v. Clapper, a United States district court ruled that the U.S. government's global telephone data-gathering system is needed to thwart potential terrorist attacks, and that it can work only if everyone's calls are included.
