Also known as: unreasonable searches and seizures · fourth amendment search · 4th amendment seizure
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A constitutional protection that secures persons, houses, papers, and effects against government intrusions lacking probable cause or a warrant. The protection bars searches and seizures that exceed recognized exceptions or lack particularity in their scope. Evidence obtained through such intrusions is subject to exclusion from criminal proceedings.
Transit officers boarded a bus and directed all passengers to set down their bags. A dog alerted on Una Unger's closed backpack. An officer unzipped the pack and examined its contents without consent or judicial authorization. The manual search violated the protection because no probable cause or warrant exception justified opening the container.
Ursula Ung challenged the admission of items seized from her home during a murder investigation. Prosecutors argued that her status as a non-marital child altered the analysis of the search's validity. The protection applies equally to all persons. Any contrary distinction was rejected.
Deta Mona Trimble is the illegitimate daughter of Jessie Trimble and Sherman Gordon. Trimble and Gordon lived together in Chicago with Deta Mona from 1970 until Gordon died in 1974 as the victim of a homicide. On January 2, 1973, the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, entered a paternity order finding Gordon to be the father of Deta Mona and ordering him to pay fifteen dollars per week for her support. Gordon thereafter supported Deta Mona in accordance with the paternity order and openly acknowledged her as his child. Gordon died intestate at the age of twenty-eight, leaving an estate consisting only of a 1974 Plymouth automobile worth approximately twenty-five hundred dollars. Shortly after Gordon's death, Trimble, as the mother and next friend of Deta Mona, filed a petition for letters of administration, determination of heirship, and declaratory relief in the Probate Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County. That court entered an order determining heirship, identifying as the only heirs of Gordon his father Joseph Gordon, his mother Ethel King, and his brother, two sisters, and a half brother. The Circuit Court excluded Deta Mona on the authority of section twelve of the Illinois Probate Act. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Circuit Court on the authority of its earlier decision in In re Estate of Karas. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction to consider the arguments that section twelve violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by invidiously discriminating on the basis of illegitimacy and sex.
View casePolice entered Uma Upadhyay's apartment without a warrant and removed obscene materials. State prosecutors sought to introduce the items at trial. The court suppressed the evidence because the search lacked probable cause and judicial authorization, extending the federal exclusionary rule to state proceedings.
Dollree Mapp stood trial in an Ohio state court for the possession of obscene materials. On May 23, 1957, three Cleveland police officers arrived at appellant's residence pursuant to information that a person was hiding in the home who was wanted for questioning in connection with a recent bombing and that there was a large amount of policy paraphernalia being hidden in the home. The appellant, after consulting with her attorney, refused to admit them without a search warrant. The officers returned with additional officers and forcibly entered the home by breaking a door. They conducted a thorough search of the home including the appellant's bedroom, her child's bedroom, the living room, kitchen, and basement. The search yielded the obscene materials for which the appellant was later charged and convicted, and no search warrant was produced at the trial. The appellant was convicted in the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County. The Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed the conviction. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal from that decision.
View caseState officials raided Uriah Urban's home and seized contraceptive materials used by a married couple. The couple challenged the seizure as an invasion of protected personal choices. The protection against unreasonable searches reinforced the zone of privacy surrounding intimate decisions.
Estelle Griswold served as Executive Director of the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut. Dr. C. Lee Buxton served as the League's Medical Director and was a professor at Yale Medical School. Together they opened and operated a center in New Haven that was open from November 1 to November 10, 1961. At the center they gave information, instruction, and medical advice to married persons as to the means of preventing conception. They examined the wife and prescribed the best contraceptive device or material for her use. Fees were usually charged, although some couples were serviced free. The statutes involved were sections 53-32 and 54-196 of the General Statutes of Connecticut (1958 rev.). Section 53-32 made it a crime to use any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception. Section 54-196 punished accessories as principals. The appellants were found guilty as accessories and fined $100 each. The Appellate Division of the Circuit Court affirmed the convictions. The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut affirmed that judgment in State v. Griswold, 151 Conn. 544, 200 A. 2d 479. The United States Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction. The appellants asserted standing to raise the constitutional rights of the married persons with whom they had a professional relationship. A criminal conviction for serving married couples removes doubts about case or controversy. The rights of husband and wife would be diluted unless considered in a suit involving those who have this kind of confidential relation to them.
View caseFederal agents entered Ulysses Usher's apartment without a warrant and searched his belongings for narcotics evidence. Usher sued the agents directly for the violation. The court recognized an implied damages remedy against federal officers who conduct unreasonable searches.
On the morning of November 26, 1965, agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics entered Webster Bivens's apartment in the Bronx. The agents broke open the door, handcuffed Bivens in front of his wife and young children, and thoroughly searched the apartment. They then transported Bivens to the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, where he was interrogated, booked, and subjected to a visual strip search. Several days later Bivens was released on his own recognizance, and he was never indicted or prosecuted for any offense. Bivens filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York against the six agents in their individual capacities. His complaint sought fifteen thousand dollars in damages from each agent and alleged that the arrest and search were effected without a warrant, that unreasonable force was employed, and that the arrest was made without probable cause. Bivens claimed to have suffered great humiliation, embarrassment, and mental suffering as a result of the agents' conduct. The District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that it failed to state a cause of action. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari to review the judgment.
View caseAn officer observed Uriel Urban pacing outside a store and suspected he might be casing it for a robbery. The officer patted down Urban's outer clothing and felt a gun. The limited intrusion was upheld because the officer possessed reasonable suspicion that Urban was armed and dangerous.
On October 31, 1963, Cleveland police detective Martin McFadden, a 39-year veteran assigned to downtown Cleveland for 30 years, observed John W. Terry and Richard Chilton standing on the corner of Huron Road and Euclid Avenue. McFadden took up a post of observation 300 to 400 feet away. He watched as the two men walked back and forth along Huron Road, pausing repeatedly to look in the window of a store before conferring with each other. This pattern repeated roughly a dozen times over ten to twelve minutes. A third man, Katz, joined them briefly before departing, after which Terry and Chilton followed the same path. By this time McFadden had become thoroughly suspicious that the men were casing the store for a robbery and feared they might be armed. McFadden approached the three men in front of Zucker's store, identified himself as a police officer, and asked their names. When they mumbled responses, he grabbed Terry, spun him around, patted down the outer clothing of his overcoat, and felt a pistol in the left breast pocket. He removed a .38-caliber revolver from Terry's pocket and ordered the men into the store, where he similarly frisked Chilton and discovered another revolver while finding no weapons on Katz. Terry and Chilton were arrested and charged with carrying concealed weapons. Prior to trial they moved to suppress the revolvers as the product of an unlawful search. The trial court denied the motion after hearing McFadden's testimony, finding that the officer had reasonable cause to believe the defendants were acting suspiciously and that the frisk was necessary for his protection. After the denial, Terry and Chilton waived jury trial, were convicted, and sentenced to one to three years in the penitentiary. The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed, the Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed the appeal, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseA dog sniff in a public place may be minimally intrusive, but unzipping and examining the interior of a backpack requires probable cause or a recognized exception. Without a warrant, consent, or exigent circumstances, the manual search violates the protection and the evidence must be suppressed.
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Accessing months of cell-site records constitutes a search because it reveals detailed movement patterns over an extended period. The government must obtain a warrant supported by probable cause rather than a mere subpoena.
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When a private entity acts jointly with federal officers by providing real-time access to location data without judicial process, the conduct can support a claim for violation of the protection. The absence of an express damages statute does not defeat jurisdiction over the constitutional claim.
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A padlocked shed preserves a reasonable expectation of privacy even when the property is subject to a regulatory program. Forced entry without a warrant, consent, or exigency violates the protection despite the regulatory context.
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…terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints . . . and which also recognizes,…