Introduction
Search and seizure is a procedure in many legal systems by which law enforcement searches a suspect’s property and seizes any relevant evidence. The Fourth Amendment protects a person from unlawful searches by law enforcement. However, several nuances may arise when appealing against the police’s actions.
First, it is crucial to determine the extent to which law enforcement actions met the definition of “search” or “seizure.” Second, it is necessary to establish how ‘unreasonable’ the police actions were and whether a search warrant or the owner’s consent was obtained in advance. The approach to the search and seizure process evolves and changes in response to technological advancements and other external factors.
Search and Seizure and Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment protects people and their property from unconstitutional searches, which applies when a person’s reasonable expectation of privacy is violated. The amendment protects human rights “in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” (U.S. Const. amend. IV). However, the concept remains vague, and with each new case, a new framework is established for what constitutes a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Initially, a search meant a physical intrusion of law enforcement agencies into a particular area of a person’s life. However, after Katz v. United States (1967), the definition of this concept underwent a change. Suspecting Charles Katz of transmitting information about gambling through a public telephone, law enforcement placed a listening device outside the telephone booth.
The Court rejected the suspect’s arguments about the unreasonableness of federal agents’ actions, “noting the absence of a physical intrusion into the phone booth itself” (Katz v. United States, 1967). However, the Supreme Court ruled that placing an electronic listening device outside a public telephone booth to record a defendant’s conversations is an offense against the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As a result, the Court held that “the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places” (Katz v. United States, 1967).
Everything that people do not want to publicize as part of their private lives should be protected by the Constitution, regardless of whether it is a public place or a physical intrusion into someone else’s property. On the contrary, any information that people knowingly put on public display, thereby providing access to it for third parties, is outside the scope of the Fourth Amendment. After Katz, the concept of ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ gained popularity among the justices, and the Katz Test began to be used to determine the boundaries of ‘reasonable’ in search and seizure.
Reasonable Expectation of Privacy
Generally speaking, a violation of the reasonable expectation of privacy is the unconstitutional intrusion of law enforcement agencies into those areas of a person’s life that they consider private and do not make public. Such a definition enables the Supreme Court to limit what may be considered unreasonable police interference in one’s personal life. Thus, the Court ruled that obtaining information about a suspect from third parties is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. People cannot have reasonable grounds to believe their companion will not share the information received with a law enforcement agency. Additionally, equipping police informants with a recording device or transmitter to listen in on a conversation does not constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Moreover, according to the Supreme Court, a search in an open area is not unreasonable since the territory is in the public domain. Anyone can enter an open space and obtain information about someone’s activities there. By the same principle, an aerial observation does not count as a search.
However, if surveillance occurs too close to residential buildings and reveals intimate details about a person’s life, law enforcement action may be considered an unreasonable search and seizure. Furthermore, the use of specially trained dogs to sniff baggage at airports cannot be challenged under the Fourth Amendment, nor can the chemical analysis of suspicious substances found by police. Searching through the waste is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment, as anyone can access it.
Technological progress necessitates that the Court make specific adjustments to the “reasonable expectation of privacy.” In Kyllo v. United States (2001), law enforcement used a thermal imaging device to collect additional information about Danny Kyllo, which served as the basis for the prosecution. However, the Supreme Court found that the thermal imaging device allowed the police to gain insight into the home’s interior that they would not have been able to attain without physical intrusion into the constitutionally protected area of a person’s life. Consequently, such a search was unlawful, and the information obtained cannot be used to bring charges in this case.
Another case involving the use of technology to obtain information about a suspect was United States v. Jones (2012). The police, without a warrant, installed a GPS device on Jones’s Jeep and tracked its movements for a month. After that, the information obtained was used to charge Jones with drug possession. Given the illegality of the police actions, the jury found Jones not guilty.
Moreover, the Justice also found that installing a GPS on a person’s property violates the Fourth Amendment. The case raised a subjective expectation of privacy since “physical intrusion is unnecessary to many forms of surveillance” (United States v. Jones, 2012). Thus, Jones made further adjustments to the definition of “reasonableness,” found in the Katz case.
The Impact of Digitalization on Search and Seizure
General digitalization was a separate factor that influenced the search and seizure process. One of the landmark cases concerning this area was Carpenter v. United States (2018), where law enforcement unreasonably tracked Timothy Carpenter’s cell site location information. The information obtained from these actions subsequently became the basis for Carpenter’s arrest and charges against him for “aiding and abetting robbery that affected interstate commerce” (Carpenter v. United States, 2018). However, the Court determined that law enforcement agencies must obtain a warrant in advance to access this data.
Chief Justice Roberts also decided that the ‘third-party doctrine’ that “information disclosed to a third party carries no reasonable expectation of privacy” (Carpenter v. United States, 2018) could not be invoked in this case. Even with the assumption that the user may be aware that information from the phone can be transferred to third parties by the cell phone provider, this occurs without the user’s action. The accused knowingly did not make this information public; therefore, such actions violate the boundaries of a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Moreover, this case gave rise to many disputes between the judges. Justice Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito agreed that mobile phone records should be considered in the same category as other business records and thus could be seized by force. Moreover, according to Justice, the information received did not belong to Carpenter but to the cell phone provider.
Justice Alito added that law enforcement agencies’ actions should not be regarded as “an order requiring a party to look through its own records and produce specified documents” (Carpenter v. United States, 2018). In light of all the facts mentioned, Justice Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito insisted that this case could not be considered a violation of the Fourth Amendment since the actions were not directed at Carpenter. However, Chief Justice Roberts established that law enforcement must have a search warrant to obtain CSLI so that the information received is legally binding and can be presented as evidence of a suspect’s guilt. Since everyone had used landlines before, there was no need for this clarification. However, after Carpenter, law enforcement agencies must have a warrant to obtain any information regarding their users from mobile operators.
Conclusion
Thus, the search and seizure process has many nuances that law enforcement agencies must consider for the information received to be lawfully used as evidence in an accusation. Furthermore, the features and specificity of the approach to this process constantly change depending on external circumstances. Although the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects a person’s property from unreasonable searches and seizures, its wording remains somewhat vague. The primary concern remains determining what actions are considered search and seizure and establishing their reasonableness. These concepts may have specific definitions in each case, creating even more questions within the criminal justice framework.
References
Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. (2018). Web.
Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967). Web.
Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001). Web.
United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. (2012). Web.