Download - Biology and the Fourth Amendment
Biology and the
Fourth Amendment
Mark Cohen & Tiffany Middleton
November 1, 2013
www.ambar.org/publicedevents
Four
th A
men
dmen
t to
the
U.S.
Con
stitu
tion
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.”
4th A
men
dmen
t as a
Twee
t No unreasonable searches, seizures; warrant must be sworn, with probable cause, specific details on person, stuff searched, seized #Fourth
Comm
on Fourth
Amendm
ent CasesWhat government activities
constitute "search" and "seizure";
What constitutes probable cause
for these actions;
Whether a warrantless search is
justified;
At what point a search is or
becomes unreasonable;
How should violations be treated.
Frequent Questions
Seizure: A person is seized within the
meaning of the Fourth Amendment
only when, by means of physical force
or show of authority, his freedom of
movement is restrained and, in the
circumstances surrounding the
incident, a reasonable person would
believe that he was not free to leave. (U.S. v. Mendhall)
A Note About Seizures
Weeks v. U.S. (1914)
Olmsted v. U.S. (1928)
Mapp v. Ohio (1961)
Katz v. U.S. (1967)
U.S. v. Jones (2012)
Searches: The Case Law
Sear
ches
: Th
e Nu
b of
It
The 4 th Amendment applies
to states;The penalty for violations is
exclusion of the evidence;The 4 th Amendment protects
reasonable expectations of
privacy;A physical intrusion on body
or property is more likely to
be viewed as a violation than a pure privacy intrusion
The Body Is Still Special“[T]his Court has never
retreated from its
recognition that any
compelled intrusion into
the human body
implicates significant,
constitutionally protected
privacy interests.”
-- Justice Sonia
Sottomayor
Missouri v. McNeely
(2013)
Skinner v. Railway
Labor Executives’
Association 1988
Board of Education of
Independent School District
No. 92 of
Pottawatom
ie County v.
Earls, et al. 2002
Safford U
nified
School District v.
Redding
2006
Florence v. County
of Burlington 2012
Missouri v.
McN
eely 2013
2013
:Ma
ryla
nd v.
Kin
g
How accurate?Fingerprint
sDNA
1 in 60,000,000,0001 in 100,000,000,000,000
Maryland v. King (2013)
When officers make an arrest
supported by probable cause to hold a
suspect for a serious offense and bring
him to the station to be detained in
custody, taking and analyzing a cheek
swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like
fingerprinting and photographing, a
legitimate police booking procedure
that is reasonable under the Fourth
Amendment.
Ruling 5-4
Wha
t is o
ur
futu
re?
Contact UsTiffany Middleton
rg(312) 988-5739
Mark Cohen
(312) 988-5728