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Fourth Amendment:Searches and SeizuresWhat is 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.The Fourth Amendment Defined:Like the majority of fields within American law, the Fourth Amendment is heavily rooted in the English legal doctrine. In a general sense, the Fourth Amendment was created to limit the power of the government and their ability to enforce legal actions on individuals. The Fourth Amendment was adopted as a direct response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, which was a type of general search warrant used by the government during the American Revolution. The Amendment was created to limit the powers of the law enforcement agency who is conducting a search of an individuals personal property.The Fourth Amendment is a part of the Bill of Rights, which are the first 10 Amendments to the United States Constitution and the framework to elucidate upon the freedoms of the individual. The Bill of Rights were proposed and sent to the states by the first session of the First Congress. They were later ratified on December 15, 1791.The first 10 Amendments to the United States Constitution were introduced by James Madison as a series of legislative articles and came into effect as Constitutional Amendments following the process of ratification by three-fourths of the States on December 15, 1791.Stipulations of the 4th AmendmentThe Fourth Amendment guards against the governments ability to conduct unreasonable search and seizures when the individual party being searched has a reasonable exception of privacy.The Fourth Amendment specifically requires a law enforcement agency to possess judicially sanctioned search and arrest warrants, which are supported by probable clause, to be administered before a persons property can be inspected.The Fourth Amendment ties in numerous limitations whereby an individual may be searched without a warrant given the presence of certain circumstances. The individuals property may be searched and seized if: The individual is on parole or in a tax hearing, faces deportation, the evidence is seized from a common carrier, the evidence is collected by U.S. customs agents, the evidence is seized by probation officers, the evidence is seized outside of the United States, or probable cause is evident.Court Cases tied into the 4th AmendmentIn Mapp v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment is enforceable and should be applied to all states in the Union by way of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Additionally, the Supreme Court ruled that certain searches and seizures were in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment even when a warrant was properly issued to the coordinating law enforcement agencies.State Timeline for Ratification of the Bill of RightsNew Jersey:November 20, 1789; rejected article IIMaryland:December 19, 1789; approved allNorth Carolina:December 22, 1789; approved allSouth Carolina: January 19, 1790; approved allNew Hampshire: January 25, 1790; rejected article IIDelaware: January 28, 1790; rejected article INew York: February 27, 1790; rejected article IIPennsylvania: March 10, 1790; rejected article IIRhode Island: June 7, 1790; rejected article IIVermont: November 3, 1791; approved allVirginia: December 15, 1791; approved all

Fourth Amendment:Searches and Seizures

What is 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.

The Fourth Amendment Defined: Like the majority of fields within American law, the Fourth Amendment is heavily rooted in the English legal doctrine. In a general sense, the Fourth Amendment was created to limit the power of the government and their ability to enforce legal actions on individuals. The Fourth Amendment was adopted as a direct response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, which was a type of general search warrant used by the government during the American Revolution. The Amendment was created to limit the powers of the law enforcement agency who is conducting a search of an individuals personal property.

The Fourth Amendment is a part of the Bill of Rights, which are the first 10 Amendments to the United States Constitution and the framework to elucidate upon the freedoms of the individual. The Bill of Rights were proposed and sent to the states by the first session of the First Congress. They were later ratified on December 15, 1791.

The first 10 Amendments to the United States Constitution were introduced by James Madison as a series of legislative articles and came into effect as Constitutional Amendments following the process of ratification by three-fourths of the States on December 15, 1791.

Stipulations of the 4th Amendment The Fourth Amendment guards against the governments ability to conduct unreasonable search and seizures when the individual party being searched has a reasonable exception of privacy.

The Fourth Amendment specifically requires a law enforcement agency to possess judicially sanctioned search and arrest warrants, which are supported by probable clause, to be administered before a persons property can be inspected.

The Fourth Amendment ties in numerous limitations whereby an individual may be searched without a warrant given the presence of certain circumstances. The individuals property may be searched and seized if: The individual is on parole or in a tax hearing, faces deportation, the evidence is seized from a common carrier, the evidence is collected by U.S. customs agents, the evidence is seized by probation officers, the evidence is seized outside of the United States, or probable cause is evident.Court Cases tied into the 4th Amendment In Mapp v. Ohio, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment is enforceable and should be applied to all states in the Union by way of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Additionally, the Supreme Court ruled that certain searches and seizures were in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment even when a warrant was properly issued to the coordinating law enforcement agencies.State Timeline for Ratification of the Bill of Rights New Jersey:November 20, 1789; rejected article II

Maryland:December 19, 1789; approved all

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4th Amendment - Laws

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'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.'

To pass muster under the Fourth Amendment, detention must be 'reasonable. ' See U.S. v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531, 542-44 ('85) (analyzing constitutionality of length of traveler's border detention under Fourth Amendment reasonableness standard); Caban, 728 F.2d at 75 (considering whether duration of border detention without a hearing was reasonable).

In the context of a criminal arrest, a detention of longer than 48 hours without a probable cause determination violates the Fourth Amendment as a matter of law in the absence of a demonstrated emergency or other extraordinary circumstance. See County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 111 S.Ct. 1661, 670 ('91). However, the Supreme Court arrived at this rule by considering the time it takes to complete administrative steps typically incident to arrest. See id.

Unreasonable Searches And Seizures.

Non-consensual extraction of blood implicates Fourth Amendment privacy rights. Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Ass'n, 489 U.S. 602, 16 ('89) ('this physical intrusion, penetrating beneath the skin, infringes [a reasonable] expectation of privacy'); Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 67 ('66) (compulsory blood test 'plainly involves the broadly conceived reach of a search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment').' '[f]or the Fourth Amendment does not proscribe all searches and seizures, but only those that are unreasonable.' Skinner, 489 U.S. at 619; accord Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton, No. 95-590, 1995 WL 373274, at *3 (June 26,'95) ('the ultimate measure of the constitutionality of a governmental search is `reasonableness''). A search's reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment generally depends on whether the search was made pursuant to a warrant issued upon probable cause. U.S. v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 701 ('83).

Even in the law enforcement context, the State may interfere with an individual's Fourth Amendment interests with less than probable cause and without a warrant if the intrusion is only minimal and is justified by law enforcement purposes. E.g., Michigan State Police Dept v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 450 ('90); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 ('68).

The gathering of fingerprint evidence from 'free persons' constitutes a sufficiently significant interference with individual expectations of privacy that law enforcement officials are required to demonstrate that they have probable cause, or at least an articulable suspicion, to believe that the person committed a criminal offense and that the fingerprinting will establish or negate the person's connection to the offense. See Hayes v. Florida, 470 U.S. 811, 813-18 ('85); Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 726-28 ('69).

Nevertheless, everyday 'booking' procedures routinely require even the merely accused to provide fingerprint identification, regardless of whether investigation of the crime involves fingerprint evidence. See Smith v. U.S., 324 F.2d 879, 882 (D.C. Cir.'63) (Burger, J.) ('it is elementary that a person in lawful custody may be required to submit to . . . fingerprinting . . . as part of the routine identification processes'); Napolitano v. U.S., 340 F.2d 313, 314 (1st Cir.'65) ('Taking fingerprints [prior to bail] is universally standard procedure, and no violation of constitutional rights.'). Thus, in the fingerprinting context, there exists a constitutionally significant distinction between the gathering of fingerprints from free persons to determine their guilt of an unsolved criminal offense and the gathering of fingerprints for identification purposes from persons within the lawful custody of the state.

Although the drawing of blood from free persons generally requires a warrant supported by probable cause to believe that a person has committed a criminal offense and that his blood will reveal evidence relevant to that offense, see Schmerber, 384 U.S. at 768-71; U.S. v. Chapel, ___ F.3d ___, slip op. at 5753-54 (9th Cir.'95) (en banc), the absence of such a warrant does not a fortiori establish a violation of the plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment rights.

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Fourth Amendment Defined & Explained - Law

The Fourth Amendment is destroyed by the Roberts led Supreme Court.
In May of 2011 the SCOTUS ruled on a lower state courts decision to throw out a case of drug possession because there was no valid search warrant for the search to be legal. This all took place...

By: Paul La Bonte

Originally posted here:
The Fourth Amendment is destroyed by the Roberts led Supreme Court. - Video

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from a Madison County man who claimed police violated the Fourth Amendment when they discovered more than 170,000 images of child pornography on his personal computer.

By doing so, the justices upheld an eight-year prison sentence of Donald Lemasters of London.

A state court of appeals last year ruled that while the Fourth Amendment protects Americans against unreasonable search and seizure, Lemasters had no reasonable expectation of privacy when he downloads information or photos from a subscriber.

The justices did not make any comment, but simply refused to hear Lemasters appeal. Lemasters pleaded no contest in 2012 to charges that he downloaded photos of nude children, with some involved in sexual acts. There was no evidence that Lemasters took any of the photos himself.

In 2011, a detective with a task force that investigates use of child pornography photos in the area asked a judge for an investigative subpoena to determine the user of an IP address suspected of downloading childrens pornography.

After learning the IP address belonged to Lemasters, Madison County sheriff officers obtained a search warrant and discovered the images on Lemasters computer and DVDs he had made from the images he downloaded.

In a separate case from Ohio, the justices vacated a ruling last year by the Ohio Supreme Court that upheld a 10-year mandatory sentence of David Willan of Akron for mortgage and securities violations.

The justices ruled that the states high court needed to consider a 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision that a mandatory sentence needs to be considered by a jury before it can be imposed.

Andrea Whitaker, an attorney for Willan, said the ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court could lead to a much shorter sentence for Willan.

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U.S. Supreme Court rules against area man in child porn case

By Joe Carbonari

The question first becomes, How much of our privacy are we willing to cede to those entrusted to protect us? Then we must ask, How are we, average citizens, to know enough to rationally make the decisions required? Realistically, we cant. Too much secrecy and technology is involved.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks we naturally tilted more to the security side, sacrificing some privacy. That was understandable. Now many of us feel that we may have tilted too far, particularly where metadata is concerned. Our phone records, emails, financial information, and health history are all either compromised or at risk. Shall we shrug and acquiesce? What actual power do we have?

We have the power of the ballot. We have the power to choose who makes the big decisions for us, what processes they must follow and who checks up on them. Their courage, intelligence, and character are key. Please choose carefully.

By Tim Baldwin

For example, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that our DNA is subject to privacy interests, that governments use of drones is limited by the Fourth Amendment, and that government cannot affix GPS tracking on vehicles without a warrant.

It is amazing a constitutional Amendment ratified in 1791 still has a significant impact on limiting government action. This proves, in part, that Amendments to the Constitution (see, Article V, U.S.C.) work to limit government power.

The executives of government naturally care less for privacy rights, given the nature of their law-enforcement role; but thankfully state and federal judiciaries have largely and consistently been faithful at limiting big government tendencies through the Fourth Amendment.

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Big Government Meets the Fourth Amendment