...The Fourth Amendment is like a ball of clay, always being reshaped with careful hands. It is a small yet important part of the Bill of Rights to protect the guaranteed rights of the people during the reformation of the United States government during the late 1780s. This amendment is responsible for protecting the property rights of the people against the government, in an effort to prevent an over abuse of power toward the people. Without the Fourth, the government would have total control of all property owned by the people without their consent. The right guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment is as follows: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall...
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...The Fourth Amendment A lot of people never realize how important the fourth amendment is . For example . Imagine you're driving your car and you don't realize it but you're going a little over speed and a cop comes and pulls you over. Then the police officer decides he wants to put you under arrest and search your car? If we didn't have the fourth amendment he would be able to do that, but luckily we do so he wouldn't be able to do that The fourth amendment in the constitution 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 place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." it gives people the right to be secure in their home. It also stops the power of the police to search people their property and their homes Today the fourth amendment is interpreted as putting restrictions on...
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...The Fourth Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights which was established in the seventeenth and eighteenth century English common law. Aside from the rest of the amendments in the Bill of Rights the Fourth Amendment can be traced back to a strong public reaction from some cases back in the 1760s. Two of these cases happened in England and one case happened in the colonies. These cases involved some pamphleteers who would pass out pamphlets to the public in order to spread their word around. These pamphlets however ridiculed the king and his ministers. After finding this out the king issued warrants to have the pamphleteer’s homes ransacked and stripped of all their books and papers. Even back then the pamphleteers knew that their rights were violated and fought back. They stated that the searches were against them, similar to a “personal attack” rather than an attack on their information they held within their homes. This is an extremely early case dealing with search and seizure, if not one of the first cases, in which the individuals being searched stood up for themselves because they felt the actions taken against them were unjust. However, since these cases are dated so far back in history it is hard to understand whether our founder fathers could have foreseen any problems with the amendment in the future, and everything that applies under the fourth amendment today. At the end of the eighteenth century this was dealing with pamphlets that the king did not like and tried...
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...obtained in violation of the search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment. Question: Are states required to exclude evidence that has been illegally obtained from trial under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments? Holding: No, due process is not denied when a State court admits evidence obtained by illegal search and seizure. The Fourteenth Amendment does not subject criminal justice in the States to limitations. Boyd v. United States 116 U.S. 616 (1886) Facts: Federal customs agents confiscated cases of plate glass under the suspicion that particular documents had been falsified so that customs fees could be avoided. A judge ordered the defendants to show the documents that had the quantity and value of the shipments. The defendants protested that they could not produce evidence against themselves, but this motion was overruled....
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...The New York Police Department has been using the “stop and frisk” tactic at an alarming rate. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects against unreasonable searches, and the New York City Police Department’s use of “stop and frisk,” in general, stopped people on the street without any reasonable suspicion that the individual had participated in criminal activity. The New York City Police Department’s policy of implementing “stop and frisk” so broadly violates the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment protects “the right of the people to be secure in their persons… papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches…” The Federal District Court in Manhattan has since opinioned that the New York City Police Department’s use of “stop and frisk” is in violation of the Constitution. The brief nature of the stop and search of the individuals does not make the process reasonable. The act of stopping a citizen in public and questioning and searching him or her no matter how long or short the engagement constitutes a search and as such requires reasonable suspicion. This interpretation is derived from the clear opinion of the Supreme Court stating that a person’s Fourth Amendment protections are not limited to the confines of one’s house, but can be expected as one walks the street or travels the road. Therefore, it is necessary for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to affirm the judgment of the district court and guarantee the reformation...
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...critique regarding the legitimacy of the document. It was argued that the Patriot Act was in violation with the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Bill of Rights. Especially the alleged violations regarding the Fourth Amendment were heavily debated. To determine...
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...Baccalaureate Business Law II Park University April, 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION 4 BODY 4 History 5 Who We Are and What We Do 5 Screenings 6 Body Scanners 7 How the TSA Circumvents The Fourth Amendment 8 U.S. vs Marquez 8 CONCLUSION 9 REFERENCES 10 INTRODUCTION In the busy world there are many things to consider when it comes to people's rights and legal issues. The focus of this paper will be that of air travel, more specifically the new requirements set forth by the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA (transportation security agency). Since that horrible day on September 11, 2001 many new regulations have been have been set in motion in order to secure the travelers. The legal issues in which I will discuss will be that of the Fourth Amendment, which guards us against unreasonable searches and seizures. Many people felt that the new rules and regulations behind TSA violated our Fourth Amendment by the pat downs and new security scanners. TRANSITION PARAGRAPH According to the TSA website the mission of the TSA is “the transportation security administration protects the nation's transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce.” TSA employees nearly, 50,000 officers, screen more than 1.7 million passengers each day at more than 450 airports...
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...Congress of the United States of America: When our Constitution was first drafted the Founding Fathers argued long and hard about the inclusion of a Bill of Rights .The key reason the Founders finally united and agreed to pass a Bill of Rights, even though the Federalists had initially argued that a piece of paper could not act to protect individual freedoms, was because they felt there had to be a way to “oblige the government to control itself,” (Postell). There are many searches of colonists’ private homes and their inability to protect themselves from such intrusions by the British Crown led the Founders to pass the Fourth Amendment (Flex Your Rights Foundation). At its core, the Fourth Amendment protects the right of the people to be free from an absolute government intrusion and from a government that has run wild with its own power. The Fourth Amendment says (Findlaw): 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. People have a right to feel safe in their houses and property cannot be lost to government action simply because the government has the power. To protect people from government intrusion and its aggressive exercise of power, probable cause was and is now required...
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...of Bangladesh has so far been amended sixteen times. These amendments and and numerous proclamation orders have been responsible for bringing in profound changes in the original character of the document. The first, second, third and fourth amendments were made by AWAMI league government of seikh mujibur rahaman, the fifth through martial law regulations and the Bangladesh national party, sixth by BNP, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th by JATIYA party, 11th, 12th, 13 and 14th by BNP. The 15TH and 16th amended by AWAMI league. The major amendments are as follow: First Amendment The Constitution (First Amendment) Act 1973 was passed on 15 July 1973. It amended Article 47 of the Constitution by inserting an additional clause which allowed prosecution and punishment of any person accused of 'genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes and other crimes under international law'. A new Article 47A was also inserted, making certain fundamental rights inapplicable in those cases. Second Amendment The Constitution (Second Amendment) Act 1973 was passed on 22 September 1973. This act: amended Articles 26, 63, 72 and 142 of the Constitution; replaced Article 33; and inserted a new part (Part IXA). Provision was made through this amendment for the suspension of certain fundamental rights of citizens during an emergency. Third Amendment The Constitution (Third Amendment) Act 1974 was enacted on 28 November 1974. This amendment altered Article 2 of the Constitution to give effect to an...
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...The ten amendments to the Constitution, which are referred to as the Bill of Rights were the first rules that helped establish the new founding country. Moreover, these ten laws are based off the idea of a democratic society. Search and Seizure is the fourth amendment created and like the others is still in place today. Passed in September 25th,1789, this amendment as stated “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”(Constitution n.d.). In other words,...
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...Abstract 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 suspicion must be based with specific expressed facts and not on just an officer’s intuition or guess. The Stop and Frisk law balances crime control, protects an individual’s right, and prevents from unreasonable searches. This law is further implemented and proven in the Supreme Court case Terry v. Ohio where it was ruled that the search performed was in fact reasonable under the constitution and the fourth amendment. Introduction 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 place...
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...argued case during their new term. This case presents the question of whether a police officer’s mistake of law can provide the individualized suspicion that the Fourth Amendment requires to justify a traffic stop (Brief of Petitioner 2). This case arose in 2009 when police stopped Nicholas Heien in North Carolina for driving with one broken brake light. The officer issued Heien a citation for his light and then proceeded to ask him if he could search his car, which Heien consented to. During the search, the officer discovered a sandwich bag that contained 54.2 grams of cocaine and Heien was arrested on the spot for drug trafficking (Oyez Project). He plead guilty to two counts of drug...
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...Our founding fathers in their quest to set forth protections of citizens enacted the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. (GPOaccess.gov/constitution) The purpose behind this amendment is the people have the right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”. At face value you may believe that this amendment provides you with total protection from an illegal search and seizure. In this paper I will demonstrate that the Fourth Amendment does not cover searches that occur in open fields or for items that are observed in plain view. In order to form an opinion on the constitutionality of a warrantless search you first need to determine what an open field is and what would be considered private property. This is known as the Open Fields Doctrine. (Wetterer, 1998) Items in open fields are not protected by the Fourth Amendment so they can be seized by an officer without a warrant or probable cause. Open fields do not fall within any of these categories. What does “open fields” exactly mean? Open fields encompass any open, undeveloped property that is not intimately used for dwelling (including curtilage) or business. The main residence on a piece of land, any outbuildings closely connected with and in close proximity to it, and the land immediately surrounding the residence are all considered to be within the curtilage of the land and are areas in which there is a reasonable expectation of privacy...
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...Amendment IV 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 (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted in response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, a type of general search warrant issued by the British government and a major source of tension in pre-Revolutionary America. The Fourth Amendment was introduced in Congress in 1789 by James Madison, along with the other amendments in the Bill of Rights, in response to Anti-Federalist objections to the new Constitution. Congress submitted the amendment to the states on September 28, 1789. By December 15, 1791, the necessary three-quarters of the states had ratified it. On March 1, 1792, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson announced the adoption of the amendment. Because the Bill of Rights did not initially apply to the states, and federal criminal investigations were less common in the first century of the nation's history, there is little significant case law for the Fourth Amendment before the 20th century. The amendment was held to...
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...“An Expectation of Privacy” Since the 1700’s, when John Wilkes felt his right to privacy was violated by the British Crown, the Fourth Amendment was written into the Bill of Rights to protect an individual's right to privacy. An individual's right to privacy allows one the freedom and liberty to seclude himself or information about himself from the government and public. This right is compromised when an individual possesses an expectation of privacy but his/her privacy is not received as expected. I support Judge Leon’s ruling on the case of Klayman v. Obama, and believe all individuals have a right to privacy that should not be compromised by the government. In the case of Klayman v. Obama, the United States government invaded individuals rights to privacy. As a result of one’s “expectation of privacy,” the United States should be found guilty. The United States government invaded individuals rights to privacy by invading their “expectation of privacy,” a right provided to all citizens by the Fourth Amendment. In Klayman v. Obama, the United States Government overstepped its boundaries and violated the privacy of American citizens which is protected by the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Judge Richard Leon found the National Security Agency (NSA) and a long list of defendants including President Obama, US Attorney General Eric Holder, the Department of Justice, Verizon Communications, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, YouTube, AOL, PalTalk, Skype,...
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