The Founding Father’s Principle About the Correlation of People’s Lives With Books

People's lives are books. While it is nice to be open and inviting enough towards others, everyone has pages that they desire to keep to themselves. The Founding Fathers had this principle in mind while composing the Bill of Rights. The Fourth Amendment was formed with the purpose of protecting people from governmental intrusion. Where the boundaries are drawn is an issue that is still contested in courts on the daily.

These Founding Fathers did not draw the idea behind this liberty out of thin air. According to Swindle Law Group, King George III of England approved the use of "writs of assistance" in an attempt to stagnate the black market that resulted from the substantial taxes levied on the colonies. These writs allowed for searches to be conducted with very broad permissions. This oppressive practice influenced the writers to form this amendment. The amendment affirms the right for citizens to be free from having their private property searched or confiscated by employees of the government. It only gives leeway in the case where a warrant is issued that specifically describes the exact place to be search and/or the item to be seized. Unlike the writs of assistance, these warrants had to be detailed and law enforcement is bound to follow them exactly. There must also be extensive evidence that justifies the search/seizure; you cannot be searched because of a "gut feeling."

However, as all legal text, this amendment required interpretation. As previously mentioned, citizens were entitled to protection against confiscation and scouring. In spite of that, the Bill never specifically mentioned what validity evidence held when obtained through means that violated this law. In 1957, police officers in Cleveland appeared at the house of Dollree Mapp. After being denied entry, they returned with a fake warrant. Her house was forcibly searched, and the investigators found pornography; this material happened to be illegal at the time. She was convicted, but appealed through every tribunal she could until her case reached the Supreme Court of the United States. While the defendant was originally bringing into question the constitutionality of the law, the justices flipped it into an argument about whether the evidence itself was protected by the Fourth Amendment.

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The Chicago-Kent College of Law says "the Court brushed aside the First Amendment issue and declared that all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is inadmissible in a state court." This change turned the spotlight away from Dollree to the actions of the police officers. The justices saw that the issue at hand had bigger implications. Was the illegality of the collection itself enough to make the evidence invalid? In the end, they ruled that evidence collected without a justifiable warrant was inadmissible in court and overturned Dollree's conviction. Mapp v. Ohio set a precedent for the nation's legal system. This new interpretation of the Fourth Amendment changed the way the process of prosecution worked and is still referenced in courtrooms today.

One could even argue that the Fourth Amendment is even more relevant now than ever before. Many politicians, including Dr. Ron Paul and Sarah Palin, have decried the US government's surveillance programs as a violation of the constitutional amendment. In an interview with CNN, Dr. Paul declared the Patriot Act as "something befitting a dictatorship." Many who agree with Dr. Paul compare this violation of the amendment to practices used by police states such as North Korea or the Soviet Union. Advocates like Dr. Paul know how essential the Fourth Amendment is to keeping our freedom as a people.

In courtrooms, there is still constant discord over interpretations of the decree. In Safford v. Redding, a preteen girl was accused of possessing drugs by a fellow pupil. According to Cornell University, school administrators then obligated her to "remove her clothes and then pull aside her bra and underwear and shake them out, exposing her breasts and pelvic area." In essence, the young girl was forced to expose her body, including her buttocks, full breasts, and vulva, to male faculty on the word of another child. The case sparked outrage as many viewed the accusations as insufficient evidence to warrant such scrutiny. The Supreme Court is where this issue eventually landed, and it was ruled that the search violated the constitution because the evidence did not demonstrate probable cause.

Another recent case was United States Government v. $124,700 in US Currency. In this instance, money was confiscated from a citizen by a police officer in an example of the practice deemed "civil forfeiture". Subsequently, the legality of the confiscation was brought into question as the owner considered it to be unreasonable seizure. The Court of Appeals disagreed due to the fact that trained dogs detected drugs on the cash, as well as assuming that the mere practice of carrying large sums of tender indicated a connection to illicit trade. As we can see, the Fourth Amendment is still a hot issue at bars in the US; this will only increase in veracity as we move deeper into the Digital Age.

As time moves along, the Fourth Amendment will continue to necessitate interpretation. "Privacy" and "property" are words that will need to have new definitions written. Out of the ten amendments that make up the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment is arguably the most important. Protection from unjustified search and seizure is essential to avoiding a nation from devolving into a police state. It is a check on the government, and thus citizens and courts must fight to retain our rights.

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