Search Result: Fourth Amendment

The Supreme Court has made it more difficult for law enforcement officers to obtain the most probative evidence of impaired driving—a measure of the alcohol concentration in a sample of the suspect's blood.

Essentially, because of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. And the public has no sympathy whatsoever for your precarious position.

Two cases from Florida have brought the U.S. Supreme Court to two different conclusions regarding K-9 searches in 2013. One is an affirmation of existing practice, but the other breaks new ground and imposes new limits.

When you make a search of premises under authority of a search warrant, it is generally permissible to detain the occupants pending completion of the search. The authority to do so, and the rationale supporting detention, were limited by a 2013 decision.

A woman who considers herself a "citizen journalist" said she plans to sue, after a Gresham (Ore.) Police officer seized video she captured during an arrest. Read the full story here.

Warrantless searches are presumed to be unreasonable, but the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged that a warrantless search may still be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment if it falls within the guidelines of one or more of a limited number of exceptions.

Warning: The video features explicit content. Two University of Kentucky, Lexington campus police officers are under fire for forcing their way into the dorm room of a student, who videotaped the encounter and posted it on YouTube. Read the full story here.

As previous "Point of Law" articles have discussed, there are four—and only four—legal justifications for entering private premises. For several reasons, the preferred authority for entry is a judicial warrant.