{"id":539,"date":"2023-06-02T19:53:46","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T19:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/fourth-amendment\/"},"modified":"2023-06-02T19:55:17","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T19:55:17","slug":"fourth-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/fourth-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Video<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Fourth Amendment\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cWB_zzTFWR0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Written Component<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution outlines the powers of the police to search and seize the property of citizens. At the time of its ratification, December 15, 1791, two forms of search in the colonies and England infringed on people\u2019s privacy. In England, \u201cgeneral warrants\u201d allowed royal officials to search a person&#8217;s belongings upon suspicion of political opposition. In the colonies, \u201cwrits of assistance\u201d <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">allowed customhouse officers, sheriffs, constables, and other officials to search any house for smuggled goods without specifying the house or the goods. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Fourth Amendment limits government power to seize and search people, their property, and their homes. Some cases require warrants to conduct searches, while probable cause is enough for others. To obtain a warrant, the government must show probable cause\u2014a certain level of suspicion of criminal activity\u2014to justify the search.\u00a0<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Palmer Raids of 1920 are an example of how the Fourth Amendment has been interpreted in divergent ways. After the Russian Revolution, which establish a communist state, Americans feared a similar domestic revolution. The Red Scare, lasting from 1970 to 1920, was a widespread fear of immigrants creating a rise in anarchism, communism, and radical leftist ideologies. To reduce the number of immigrants, the U.S. Department of Justice, led by A. Mitchell Palmer, conducted a series of arrests known as the Palmer Raids. Those detained were suspected of <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">sympathizing with communists or anarchists.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Many immigrants, merely speaking with an accent, were arrested, surpassing the number of warrants issued. The arrests were lawful, the department argued, because the suspects supported overthrowing the government. Prominent lawyers and legal scholars argued that the arrests were unconstitutional. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, Ernst Freund, and Harvard Law School Dean Roscoe Pound wrote that the Department lacked warrants, allowed officers to use unrestrained force, and\u00a0 seize documents at will.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Fourth Amendment states what cannot happen in cases of search and seizure, but not what will happen if it is violated. The 1920s <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">court case illustrates how the Fourth Amendment has been breached, then debated<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Silverthorne attempted to evade paying taxes, so Federal officers searched the company&#8217;s office and copied various documents \u201cwithout a shadow of authority\u201d said Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The court\u2019s ruling held that illegally copied evidence was tainted, so <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">the government couldn\u2019t use it to frame a new indictment or prosecute. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the exclusionary rule, prohibiting evidence unconstitutionally obtained to be used in court. If tainted evidence were allowed, Holmes\u2019s ruling held, the police would attempt to find ways around the Fourth Amendment. The case illustrates how the parameters of the Fourth Amendment have been expanded and reinterpreted since its ratification.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Fourth Amendment\u2019s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with the requirement of warrants based on probable cause, exemplifies the Founding Father\u2019s commitment to limiting the power of the government and protecting individual rights. This relates to Enlightenment thinker Baron de Montesquieu\u2019s theory of separation of powers, which heavily influenced the U.S. Constitution. Montesquieu advocated for a system of checks and balances, where power is divided among several branches. This aimed to prevent a single individual or group from gaining too much power, which would protect the rights of the people. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I find Justice Holmes\u2019s interpretation persuasive and believe that while the amendment does not need change, fairly recent cases before the Supreme Court involving police searching vehicles without warrants have undermined this right. So perhaps there must be changes made to further enforce the fourth amendment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p> <p style=\"text-align: center\"><br><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Works Cited<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. &#8220;Writ of Assistance.&#8221; In<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Encyclopaedia Britannica<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Last modified February 28, 2020.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/writ-of-assistance.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. &#8220;Silverthorne Lumber Co. V. United<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0States 251 U.S. 385 (1920).&#8221; In <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Encyclopedia of the American Constitution<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Last modified may 25, 2023. https:\/\/www.encyclopedia.com\/politics\/<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps\/<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Silverthorne-lumber-co-v-united-states-251-us-385-1920.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-size: revert; color: initial; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, sans-serif;\"> <\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Friedman, Barry, and Orin Kerr. &#8220;The Fourth Amendment.&#8221; In <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Constitution<\/span><\/i><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Center<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. https:\/\/constitutioncenter.org\/the-constitution\/amendments\/<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0amendment-iv\/interpretations\/121.\u00a0<\/span><\/p> <p>\u00a0<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution outlines the powers of the police to search and seize the property of citizens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6543,"featured_media":538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,632,631,26,31,405,636,635,633,634],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amendment","tag-ariella","tag-ariella-resnikoff-diaz","tag-constitution","tag-fourth","tag-fourth-amendment","tag-government","tag-police","tag-probable-cause","tag-search-and-seizure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6543"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}