“This is a highly useful edited compilation of some of the most important classic and recent articles published by some of the finest scholars of Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure law—a great overview of the history, present, and future of an Amendment that is so important to the lives of American citizens.”
—Professor Joshua Dressler, Frank R. Strong Chair in Law, Michael E. Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University, and co-author of Understanding Criminal Procedure (2 volumes) and Criminal Procedure: Principles, Policies and Perspectives
“This is a wonderful collection of short, insightful essays on search and seizure from many different perspectives. Whether you want to learn more about the history of the Fourth Amendment, the amendment’s future or its current state of health or whether you’re interested in racial profiling, stops and frisks, the exclusionary rule or how the war on terror has affected the law of search and seizure, you’ll find much food for thought in this volume.”
--Yale Kamisar, author of Police Interrogation and Confessions,
coauthor of Modern Criminal Procedure and
professor of law, University of San Diego,
Clarence Darrow Distinguished University
Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Michigan
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” —
The Fourth Amendment For decades, legal scholars and the justices of the Supreme Court have debated the meaning of the words in the Fourth Amendment. This debate has taken on particular significance today in the wake of terrorist threats to our national security. The way the Court interprets the Fourth Amendment has a direct impact on the people whose lives are touched by government searches.
In this thorough and timely anthology on this crucial amendment, law professor Cynthia Lee provides an overview of the most important aspects of Fourth Amendment doctrine and scholarly criticisms of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence relating to the amendment.
Dividing the work into three parts, Lee begins by providing historical background and a summation of the debate over the meaning of Fourth Amendment.
In the next section, the work focuses on the doctrinal underpinnings of the Fourth Amendment, providing both description and critique of the U.S. Supreme Court’s current search and seizure jurisprudence. It examines problems with the Court’s definition of a “search” and "seizure" and the thorny subject of racial and ethnic profiling, among other topics.
The concluding section examines the future of the Fourth Amendment in light of new and emerging technologies and the war on terror.
This user-friendly, well-organized anthology will be of great value to students and scholars of the law, and anyone with an interest in the balance between individual rights and governmental power.
Binding: Paperback
300 pages
ISBN: 978-1-61614-180-6
Shipping Weight: 1lbs
Author Bio:
Cynthia Lee (Washington, DC) is a professor of law at The George Washington University Law School. She is the author of Murder and the Reasonable Man: Passion and Fear in the Criminal Courtroom and the coauthor (with Angela Harris) of the first and second editions of Criminal Law: Cases and Materials.
