What is the most famous case of the 4th Amendment?

Asked by: Prof. Thaddeus Miller  |  Last update: March 31, 2025
Score: 4.2/5 (35 votes)

One of the most important Warren Court Fourth Amendment decisions was Mapp v. Ohio (1961). In this case, the Court held that States must apply the exclusionary rule to evidence obtained unconstitutionally.

What is a famous Court case involving the 4th Amendment?

Brendlin v. California. This Fourth Amendment activity is based on the landmark Supreme Court case Brendlin v. California, dealing with search and seizure during a traffic stop.

What is a real life example of the 4th Amendment?

Without reasonable suspicion, police extension of a traffic stop to conduct a dog sniff violates the Constitution's shield against unreasonable seizures. When an officer's mistake of law was reasonable, there was a reasonable suspicion justifying a stop under the Fourth Amendment.

What happened in Terry, V. Ohio?

In June 1968, the United States Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and set a precedent that allows police officers to interrogate and frisk suspicious individuals without probable cause for an arrest, providing that the officer can articulate a reasonable basis for the stop and frisk.

What happened in Katz v. United States?

The Court held that wiretapping violated the privacy of the criminal defendant, Charles Katz -- privacy that he expected to have once entering a phone booth and closing the door. Charles Katz was charged with placing illegal bets across state lines using a public telephone booth.

The 4th Amendment Explained

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Is Katz still good law?

The “Expectation of Privacy” test of Katz v. United States is a common target of attack by originalist Justices and originalist scholars. They argue that the Katz test for identifying a Fourth Amendment search should be rejected because it lacks a foundation in the Constitution's text or original public meaning.

What happened in Mapp v. Ohio?

Decision: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-3 vote in favor of Mapp. The high court said evidence seized unlawfully, without a search warrant, could not be used in criminal prosecutions in state courts.

What happened in Tennessee V Garner?

Garner - The Fleeing Felon Rule. In Tennessee v. Garner, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Tennessee statute that permitted police to use deadly force against a suspected felon fleeing arrest.

What happened in Minnesota vs. Dickerson?

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the cocaine in this case was inadmissible as evidence even though the Court held that officers were allowed to assume that an object was contraband through touch.

What did Graham v. Connor establish?

Connor Case Law. The Graham v. Connor ruling established ''objective reasonableness'' as the judicial standard by which to judge whether police used unreasonable excessive force under the Fourth Amendment.

What are illegal seizures?

An illegal search and seizure is one performed when law enforcement does not have the right to search your person or property.

Who won Kaupp v. Texas?

Decision for Kaupp

In a per curiam opinion, the Court held that an arrest within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment occurred and that Kaupp's conduct was not consent sufficient to overcome the probable cause requirement.

What is Amendment 7?

Amendment Seven to the Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791. It protects the right for citizens to have a jury trial in federal courts with civil cases where the claim exceeds a certain dollar value. It also prohibits judges in these trials from overruling facts revealed by the jury.

What is a real life example of the Fourth Amendment?

For years, agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have impersonated the police and used other deceptive tactics to gain warrantless entry into people's homes, or lure them out — a practice that the ACLU, in collaboration with others, has challenged in court as a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

What was the Smith Fourth Amendment case?

The Smith ruling was the Supreme Court's first significant articulation of the third-party doctrine in which government investigators may be permitted to search a person's private information by obtaining it not from the person directly, but from a business or other party with which the person has traded such ...

What happened to Timothy Dickerson?

Officers arrived to find Timothy Dickerson shot to death. Dickerson was 38. Police took Porsche Moore, Dickerson's girlfriend, into custody. Police said Moore admitted shooting Dickerson during an argument.

What did Terry v. Ohio establish?

In 1968, the US Supreme Court decided, in the case Terry v. Ohio, that police using a “stop and frisk” procedure are within constitutional bounds as officers of the law.

What is the exclusionary rule in the 4th Amendment?

Overview. The exclusionary rule prevents the government from using most evidence gathered in violation of the United States Constitution . The decision in Mapp v. Ohio established that the exclusionary rule applies to evidence gained from an unreasonable search or seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment .

What is the 3 prong test for Graham v. Connor?

The Graham factors are the severity of the crime at issue; whether the suspect posed an immediate threat; and whether the suspect was actively resisting or trying to evade arrest by flight.

What is the knock and announce rule?

Under common law knock-and-announce rule, a police officer executing a search warrant generally should not immediately force their way into a residence. Instead, the officer must first knock, identify themselves and their intent, and wait a reasonable amount of time for the occupants to let them into the residence.

What Supreme Court case brought us frisk Pat down?

In Terry v. Ohio, the Court ruled that officers have the right to stop and pat down a suspect if they have reasonable suspicion that the person may be armed. The basis for this decision was officer safety as was the case in Sivron v.

What happened in Wolf v. Colorado?

The main consequence of the unanimous ruling in Weeks was that in a federal prosecution, the Fourth Amendment prohibited the use of evidence obtained by an illegal search and seizure.

What happened in the New Jersey V-TLO case?

In a juvenile court, T.L.O. argued that her Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures had been violated. The court sided with the school, and T.L.O. took her case to the New Jersey Supreme Court, which later found that the search was unreasonable and the evidence could not be used.

What happened in US v. Leon?

In United States v. Leon and the companion Massachusetts v. Sheppard case (1984), the Supreme Court ruled that the exclusionary rule need not apply to evidence obtained by law enforcement officers who acted in good faith on a search warrant properly issued but later found to be defective.