Fourth Amendment Essay Examples

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects one’s rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. It also states that no warrants shall be issued without probable cause. Probable cause can be defined as a person of reasonable caution who believes that a crime has been committed and the person accused has committed that crime. Modern law has afforded police officers an incentive to respect this amendment, known as the “stop and frisk” act. The Stop and Frisk law allows police officers to stop someone and do a quick search of their outer clothing for weapons: if the officer has a reasonable suspicion that a crime has or is about to take place and the person stopped is armed or dangerous. The reasonable

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.

For searches without a warrant, then its mandatory to comply with standards of probable cause is the court. Even the searches being made for a criminal cannot be made without the existence of a proper probable cause. Therefore the officers don’t have the right to lawfully carry on searching and arresting people without having the proper probable cause with them.

Even brief street detentions are arrests, and pat downs are searches, so the police can’t do anything unless they’ve got probable cause.

Before a person is arrested the police usually need a probable cause to arrest them, or a solid reason to arrest someone. The same goes with the police coming to your house to search it, they need a warrant, or a signed piece of paper signed by a judge. In order to get this paper they need proper evidence or else it

Law enforcement officers can conduct warrantless searches for a variety of reasons. Some of the benefits are not having to wait for a judge of magistrate to sign off on it. If you can obtain consent from an individual it must be voluntary and stay within its scope, as well as the person giving consent must have the authority to do so. The search incident to lawful arrest exception is used every time an officer makes an arrest, this is to ensure their safety, prevent escape, and prevent destruction of evidence. This could be a body search, or a search within the area within a person’s immediate control. Police may use warrantless searches when exigent circumstances arise, such as when a warrant may be impractical, useless, dangerous, or unnecessary. These include danger of physical harm to officer or destruction of evidence, searches in hot pursuit of dangerous suspects, danger to a third person, and driving while intoxicated. Police can also use the special needs beyond law enforcement exception for public school searches, testing students for drugs, airport searches and searches of probationers and parolees.

Again in other case if a judge has issued a warrant he can break the door when there is no response from the person and go inside the house to investigate and also he can catch at the public place also. Upon that they are some exception while searching or seizing the things like emergency, lawful arrest, consents, stop and frisk etc…

The Fourth Amendment states, '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

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.” –U.S. Constitutional Amendments

The Fourth Amendment mandates that “probable cause” must be demonstrated in order for law enforcement personnel to obtain a warrant. Probable cause is obtained by law enforcement personnel proving to a judge that there is a high expectation of evidence of a crime being located upon the person, or within the location, they wish to search (Hill & Hill, 2014). Federal law does allow law enforcement to conduct a search without a warrant. The exception is for

For police officers as we learned in several chapters, there are issues that come with their abilities to conduct legal searches, for example a police officer cannot just approach someone on their front porch and demand to enter their home to search for illegal substances or arms etc. However, if one was driving by your home and seen you in your garage with what appeared to be a meth lab or marijuana grow operation then they can stop to search as it would be a duty of theirs to protect the community. A search where one person would feel that they have a reasonable expectation of privacy cannot happen without a warrant. The police officers job abilities can

As far as searches and seizures are concerned, a simple tip by an anonymous person gives the police permission to get a search warrant (Wisotsky 1993). However, in accordance with the Fourth Amendment, these warrants must ‘particularly describe’ locations and be from a recent date (Sterling 1990). Also, the Supreme Court has “significantly enlarged the powers of the police to stop, question, and detain drivers of vehicles on the highways on suspicion with less than probable cause or with no suspicion at all at fixed checkpoints or roadblocks; make warrantless searches of automobiles and of closed

I could be driving minding my own business and a drive by a police officer just parked somewhere and police officer spots me and pulls me over for some reason. The police officer orders me out of my vehicle. Maybe I was speeding and I did not know? Or maybe the police officer wants to search me and my car? Can the officer do that? The answer to all these questions are no, Thanks to the Fourth Amendment, The police officer has limited power to seize and search me or my car (Friedman, Barry, and Orin Kerr). Now, the Fourth Amendment has been questioned repeatedly during the last several years, as police and higher intelligent agencies in the United States have engaged in a number of controversial activities. From the federal government collecting telephones and Internet connections to protect us, due to the War on Terror and trying to prevent the same damage that happened on 9/11. Many municipal police forces have engaged in violent use of “stop and frisk.” There have been as far as incidents were police officers were force to shoot civilians (Friedman, Barry, and Orin Kerr).

In the court case United States v. Ludwig the police took a narcotics dog through a parking lot in hopes that he would find the scent of drugs (www.loompanatics.com). Since a motorized vehicle has the ability to be driven far away and evidence can be removed, police believe that under certain circumstances they can search a car without a warrant. A dog alerted the cops by letting them know he smelled the scent of narcotics. They asked the suspect if they can search his truck. The suspect didn’t give them consent he was against the search but they still took the keys from him to search the truck. They found drugs in his trunk and a couple of large bags of marijuana. The police didn’t have a warrant nor did they have permission from the suspect to search his truck. The Supreme Court first ruled that it was unlawful to search his car without a warrant and no legit reasoning for the search. Then the court ruled that it was lawful because the officers said that the dog alerting them, were their reasoning for a warrantless search. The cops also stated in court that the reason they took the suspect’s keys is because if they have didn’t, there was a possibility that he could drive off and get rid off the drugs which would be their loss of evidence. This case shows how citizens have certain rights when it comes to their vehicles but they can still be ‘violated” in a sense.

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.