4th Amendment

When the government suspects someone of committing a crime, they can't just barge into someone's house or hack into their computer to look for evidence, right? The 4th Amendment provides some protections against this by requiring the government to establish probable cause and obtain a warrant before it can search or seize. This right has been very important throughout American history and is still being interpreted by the Supreme Court!

4th Amendment Rights

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is the first of the "rights of the accused" section, which constitutes the Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, and Sixth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment gives people the right to be safe from unreasonable government searches or property seizures. It requires the government to obtain warrants that show probable cause before search or seizure.

4th Amendment Examples

Like other provisions like the Second Amendment and Third Amendment, the inspiration for the Fourth Amendment can be traced to events in British history.

Semayne Case

The first trace of the Fourth Amendment is Semayne's Case in 1603. The case centered around two men who lived together in London. After one of them died while in debt to a man named Peter Semayne, Semayne tried to seize his goods. When he was denied entry, he sued the roommate for his losses.

In respones, the court provided some protections against breaking and entering a house. Sir Edward Coke famously said that a man's house is his castle and fortress.

Entick v. Carrington

In 1762, messengers sent by the king's Secretary of State broke into writer John Entick's house in England. They ransacked the home and search it from top to bottom, causing significant damage and seizing a few hundred pamphlets as evidence of Entick's sedition. Entick sued them for trespassing.

Fig. #1 A portrait of author John Entick. Source: Guillaume Philippe Benoist, Wikimedia Commons, PD-Art

The court ruled in his favor, saying that neither the Secretary of State nor the men who carried out his orders had the authority to issue a warrant for Entick's home. Their decision was rooted in the right to property, saying:

This case was later cited by the United States Supreme Court as one of the foundations for the Fourth Amendment.

4th Amendment Summary

The American colonists also began seeking protections from the British government's search and seizure.

James Otis and Writs of Assistance

While people in England enjoyed some wins related to protecting their personal property from government intrusion, many of those same rights didn't apply to colonists in the Americas. This, along with new laws increasing colonists' taxes, ultimately led to the American Revolution and the passage of the Fourth Amendment.

In the 1760s, British officials began cracking down on suspected smuggling in the American colonies. Officials simply had to obtain a writ of assistance to get the authority to search and seize colonial property.

The colonists were outraged. James Otis, a lawyer from Massachusetts, led a movement to oppose the writs of assistance in court. He argued that they violated British law, and famously said:

While the courts ruled against Otis, his words inspired many revolutionaries to resist oppressive British policies.

Virginia Declaration of Rights

When the United States declared independence in 1776, several states began issuing their own declaration of rights. In particular, Virginia's Declaration of Rights helped lead to the Fourth Amendment, as it stated that general warrants are "grievous and oppressive and ought not to be granted."³

Constitution 4th Amendment

After winning the war, Congress eventually came back together in 1787 to draft a new constitution. However, several states refused to ratify the Constitution unless Congress added a Bill of Rights.

Thus, the Bill of Rights, along with the Fourth Amendment, was ratified in 1791. Below is the full text of the Fourth Amendment:

4th Amendment Protections

There are two important requirements that protect individuals: Warrants and Probable Cause.

Warrant

A warrant is an official document authorization officials to do something, such as searching and/or seizing property. To obtain a warrant, police officers must establish probable cause and provide the proper documentation to a magistrate, who then decides whether or not to issue the warrant. There are a few exceptions that allow officers to search or seize property without a warrant (see below!).

Probable Cause

In order to obtain a warrant, investigators must establish probable cause. Probable Cause means that there is a strong amount of evidence and facts to lead investigators to believe that the subject has committed a crime. This also means that officials can't just request a warrant for every suspicious person they see.

Exceptions

There are a few exceptions to the requirement for officials to obtain a warrant and establish probable cause. These include:

• If the subject consents to a search;
• If the evidence is in "plain view and open field," meaning that the evidence can be observed out in public;
• In the presence of "exigent circumstance," meaning that entry was necessary to prevent physical harm, destruction of evidence, or the suspect's escape;
• If the officer has probable cause to believe that evidence or contraband is in a motor vehicle;
• If the subject is close (within 100 miles) to a United States border.

4th Amendment Cases

In the past century, several important Supreme Court cases have added to our understanding of the 4th Amendment.

Week v. United States and the Exclusionary Rule

In 1911, a man named Fremont Weeks was arrested for using the mail to send lottery tickets. Police officers searched his home without a warrant, seized a number of papers, and handed them over to the marshall to submit as evidence. After Weeks was convicted using this evidence, he sued the court, saying that the officers had violated the 4th Amendment.

The Supreme Court agreed with Weeks and said that since the officers didn't obtain a warrant, the evidence couldn't be used in court. In doing so, they established the exclusionary rule.

Olmstead v. United States (1928)

In 1928, a man named Roy Olmstead challenged his conviction for a crime because the evidence used to convict him came from wiretapped private phone conversations. He argued that the secret wiretap violated his 4th Amendment rights.

The Supreme Court ruled against him, saying that "search and seizure" only applied to physical property.

Fig. #2 Wiretapping devices allow investigators to listen in on phone conversations. Source: Paul2, Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY-SA-4.0

Katz v. United States (1967)

Several decades later, the Supreme Court overturned the Olmstead decision in Katz v. United States. They said that the Fourth Amendment does cover phone conversations, which meant that the police needed to obtain a proper warrant before wiretapping.