Supreme Court Decisions - Research Paper Example

Supreme Court Decisions of the of the Concerned June 15, Supreme Court Decisions The Fourth Amendment and ‘Unreasonable Search’ The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States stands to be a part of the Bill of Rights. It aims at protecting the citizens of America against unreasonable search and seizures. The Objective of the Fourth Amendment was to curb the misuse of ‘writ of assistance’ in the American Revolution that amounted to a type of general search warrant (Dripps, 2007).

As per the Fourth Amendment, a ‘reasonable search’ is one that is pursuant to a judicially sanctioned warrant and is supported by a probable cause (Dripps, 2007). That is as per the Fourth Amendment, if a search is not carried on, on the basis of a judicial warrant and its scope is not defined and delineated on the basis of the information furnished by an individual under oath and hence accountable to the court of law, it stands to be unreasonable. Thus, the Fourth Amendment’s definition of ‘search’ is very broad based that is open to varied interpretations in case of actual court cases and rulings.

Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928) Before this judgment, the judicial institutions including the Supreme Court of the United States followed the spirit of the English Common Law, as per which, the permissibility of evidence in a court of law was in no way susceptible to the way in which that evidence was obtained (Bloom, 2003). In the judgment under consideration, the petitioner, Roy Olmstead appealed to the Supreme Court that the wiretapped private telephone communication presented as evidence against him by the law enforcement bodies were a direct violation of his Fourth Amendment Rights.

The Supreme Court gave the ruling that the presented wiretapped telephonic conversation as evidence against the petitioner in no way violated the Fourth Amendment. In this judgment the Supreme Court took a narrow meaning of the Fourth Amendment and held that an actual physical intrusion was necessary to declare the process resorted to for accessing an evidence to be called a ‘search’ (Bloom, 2003). In case of Olmstead, no actual search and seizure were resorted to obtain evidence. Katz v.

United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967) The given Supreme Court Judgment overruled Olmstead v United States, as per which an intrusion into the privacy of an individual to be declared an ‘unreasonable search’ was dependant on the proving of an actual physical intrusion by a person or institution. Katz v. United States was a landmark judgment in the sense that it much broadened the legal meaning of search, which was hitherto dependant on the requirement of actual physical intrusion as determined by Olmstead v.

United States. Katz v. United States extended the scope of the Fourth Amendment and the protection provided to the citizens against ‘unreasonable search’ (McWhirter, 1994). As per this judgment, the intrusion by the state law enforcement authorities and officials in any area where a person had the reasonable right and expectation to desire privacy, even if it does not involve an actual physical intrusion by the law enforcement personnel stand to be an ‘unreasonable search’ and a violation of the Fourth Amendment (McWhirter, 1994).

The Fourth Amendment merely mentions search by a person, while in practical legal interpretation, the search is usually meant to be a search by law enforcement officers. The Fourth Amendment is limited about the meaning of ‘search’. While as per Katz, a search is any intrusion into the privacy of an individual. Katz also widens the meaning of ‘personal privacy’, unlike the Fourth Amendment. The fourth amendment does not foresee the possibility of an ‘unreasonable search’ through the use of technology, as is done by Katz.

Hence, Katz did much, to pragmatically interpret and up to date the meaning and scope of the possibilities inherent in the Fourth Amendment. References Bloom, Robert M. (2003). Search, Seizure and Warrants. Westport, CT: Praeger. Dripps, A Donald. (2007). Reconstructing the Fourth Amendment. Constitutional Commentary, 2.4, 533-544. McWhirter, Darien. (1994). Search, Seizure and Privacy. Phoenix: Oryx Press.