4th Amendment Cases by John Frankhauser

Terry v. Ohio (1967)

fra513610 — 2024-05-15 14:36:38 UTC

Terry and two other men were observed by a plain clothes policeman in what the officer believed to be "casing a job, a stick-up." The officer stopped and frisked the three men, and found weapons on two of them. Terry was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon and sentenced to three years in jail.

Was the search and seizure of Terry and the other men in violation of the Fourth Amendment?

8-1 decision in favor of Ohio

Terrys rights were LIMITED. The Court held that the search undertaken by the officer was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and that the weapons seized could be introduced into evidence against Terry.

Safford Unified School District v. Redding (2009)

dan514038 — 2024-05-15 14:37:33 UTC

Summary: Savana Redding, an 8th grader, was strip searched by school officials based on a tip from another student that she had ibuprofen on her. She filed suit against the school because her right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure was violated.

The district court sided with the school district and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. Still, when rehearing the Court of Appeals, they sided with Redding because the search was not justified or the scope of intrusion related to the circumstances.

Question: Does the Fourth Amendment prohibit school officials from strip-searching students suspected of possessing drugs in violation of school policy?

SCOTUS Ruling: 8-1 in favor of Redding.

The Fourth Amendment was upheld and Redding's rights were PROTECTED because they ruled that Redding's rights were violated and school search measures must be reasonably related to the objectives of the search and in light of the age/sex of the student along with the nature of the infraction.

Vernonia school district 47 J vs Acton

2024-05-15 14:38:01 UTC

a boy going to a Vernonian school did not want to be drug tested when playing football so he ended up having his case appealed to the Supreme Court where they found in a 6-3 vote that students under school supervision can be forced to take a drug test, and this does not intrude on the 4th amendment right.

Riley v. California

2024-05-15 14:42:52 UTC

Riley and others opened fire on a rival gang member. Riley then got pulled over on expired license registration tags. the car had to get impounded, police were required to search the vehicle. two guns were found, Riley got arrested for possession of firearms. Later police tied him to the august 2 shooting.

Was the evidence admitted at trial from Riley's cell phone discovered through a search that violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches?

9-0 in favor of chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Rileys rights were LIMITED. The Court held that the warrantless search exception following an arrest exists for the purposes of protecting officer safety and preserving evidence.

Memphis Police tactics (2023)

fra513610 — 2024-05-16 13:27:14 UTC

A man in Memphis was arrested for driving with a revoked license. But the police searched a whole other car that was his relatives and found guns.

The cop unreasonably searched another person's car without any suspicion. The court ruled that that evidence should be thrown out.

Data Broker Sales (2023)

dan514038 — 2024-05-16 13:30:08 UTC

For years, federal and state agencies have been buying large amounts of data from private data broker companies. It has led to the government purchasing data on over 98 million users from a prayer app, or other apps that collect user data like dating apps, mobile games, the Weather app, Google, and social media apps. The data reveals information such as their faith, political associations,immigration status, pregnancy/seeking an abortion status, and more. Government attorneys claim agencies can purchase data without a warrant because the data is commercially available, meaning there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to this data, and because users signed a terms of service waiver, meaning they forfeited their privacy rights in the data.

The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches” of people’s “persons, houses, papers, and effects.” The Fourth Amendment normally requires a warrant to conduct surveillance like, tracking people’s locations and wiretapping phones, but doesn't prohibit private companies from tracking data (the 4th amendment only prohibits the government doing that, not private companies).

Abel v. United States

2024-05-16 13:31:21 UTC

In early May of 1957, Reino Hayhanen informed the American Embassy in Paris that he had been acting as a secret agent for the Soviet Union in the United States since 1952. FBI agents began a long investigation of abel but didn't seek to obtain a warrant of arrest. but then The United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, affirmed Abel’s conviction, holding that INS agents could search Abel’s hotel room incident to his valid arrest and pursuant to a deportation arrest warrant.

Was Abel properly arrested pursuant to an administrative Immigration and Naturalization Service warrant despite an overlapping FBI investigation for espionage? Were the Fourth and Fifth Amendments violated when the United States searched and seized evidence from Abel while he was in custody pursuant to an INS warrant?