The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures and provides that warrants may only be granted upon findings of probable cause. The Fourth... more +
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures and provides that warrants may only be granted upon findings of probable cause. The Fourth Amendment applies to the States via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Important areas of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence flow from questions surrounding the definitions of "search" and "seizure," the applicability of the Amendment to so-called "stop and frisk" situations, the level of control that must be exerted by law enforcement before an individual is deemed "seized," and the "exclusionary rule," just to name a few.
Cameras Snap Your License Plates for Huge Databases
Newsbreak: Your Rights
In a 33-1 vote, on May 13, the state Senate approved Senator Mark Leno's bill that would require state law enforcement officials to obtain a search warrant before asking service providers to disclose the contents of their...more
Context and content matters to the assessment of reasonable expectations of privacy in criminal law matters. Recently, in R. v. B. (C.), 2013 CarswellOnt 3851 (SCJ), P. Smith J. considered the constitutionality of a...more
In a recent decision, the first federal appellate court to address the rights of school officials to search student cell phones held that a student’s violation of a school rule regarding technology did not justify a general...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit is set to become the first federal appellate court to answer the question left open by the Supreme Court in United States v. Jones. Last year, the Court held in Jones that a...more
Overview: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that police could not take into custody a person cited for an infraction (in this case, trespassing) unless the arrestee has no satisfactory identification, refuses...more
Last week, the ACLU created a stir when it suggested that the IRS may be reading taxpayers’ emails without obtaining a search warrant. At least at some point in time in the past, according to the IRS’ 2009 “Search Warrant...more
On Thursday, March 21, 2013, a motion hearing occurred regarding the four Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) officers who face charges of conducting illegal strip searches and illegal body cavity searches. During the hearing,...more
The explosive pace of new technology has enabled people to connect and communicate in ways never before possible. Lawmakers and Internet advocates must now tango with each other in a scramble to keep up with the technology...more
With text messages, Tweets, Facebook posts and other digital communications so prevalent in student’s lives, schools have been struggling to deal with the influx of mobile devices on campus. Last week, the Sixth U.S. Circuit...more
Overview: In a 5-4 decision,the U.S. Supreme Court this week ruled that a Florida police dog’s sniffing for drugs in front of a man’s home constituted an illegal search. Based on an unverified tip, police physically entered...more
Following Too Closely. It’s a basic traffic violation that we rarely think about. But the truth is that we all follow the car in front of us too closely. “Wait a second,” you say. “I’m a safe driver. I’ve never even been...more
On March 21, a bipartisan group of legislators in the House of Representatives introduced a new bill, the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act, which would force law enforcement to obtain a warrant to track suspects with...more
Overview: A California appellate court recently upheld the admission of evidence obtained from the sensing diagnostic module (SDM) of a vehicle impounded after a fatal crash. The SDM decides whether to deploy air bags based...more
The vast increase in the use of wireless data networks has led to new legal issues regarding network users’ right to privacy. A recent opinion issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon indicates that, under...more
Someone told the police that Chunon Bailey sold drugs. Worse, he sold drugs and had a gun at his house at 103 Lake Drive in Wyandanch, New York. That someone was a confidential informant. The police took that tip...more
In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court Monday ruled that an alert by a trained drug-sniffing dog constitutes probable cause for a police search under most circumstances. In Florida v. Harris, the court rejected...more
The Supreme Court has said that you can never suppress the body of a person accused of a crime - the person's identity is not able to be kept out of evidence, even if that identity is the result of an unlawful arrest or...more
Each Tuesday the #Edchat hashtag brings together educators from across the globe to discuss education-related topics on Twitter. Last week one of the questions on #Edchat was “How do we train educators to teach in programs...more
Google released a transparency report last week showing that government snooping into your personal data is on the rise. The numbers released by the Internet giant show that law enforcement officials in the United...more
Whether the police have the right to search a car depends on the circumstances surrounding the search and whether authorities perform the search before or after arrest. In many cases, when officers ask for permission to...more
Have you ever wondered, as a parent, as a child, or perhaps as a college roommate, what the police can do when you call 911 on behalf of another? In Stricker v. Twp. of Cambridge, Case No. 11-1998 (6th Cir. Jan. 14, 2013),...more
A federal judge on Jan. 8 put a temporary halt to the New York City Police Department’s controversial “stop and frisk” program as it applies to visitors and residents of a group of residential buildings in the Bronx....more
A Texas state trooper is suspended with pay and will face a grand jury next month for conducting a body cavity search of two women on the side of a highway near Irving, Texas, in full view of passing traffic and a male...more
Search and seizure is fundamental element of criminal practice. It ties in directly with the process of discovery and the doctrines of reasonable suspicion and probable cause. It is a constitutional guarantee as expressed in...more
Search and seizure is a law enforcement procedure where officers search a person’s property and confiscate anything that is illegal or that can be used as evidence of an illegal act. However, all people in the United States...more
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