One of the changes to the Constitution of the United States is the Fourth Amendment. The purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to protect personal privacy and the right of every citizen to freedom from unreasonable intrusion from the government into their persons, residents, businesses, and properties. Unreasonable intrusions might occur through the frequent stops by the police of the citizens across the streets and organized searches of their businesses and homes or arrests (Kerr, 2016). Based on this, courts and lawmakers focus on integrating legal safeguards. Their intent is to ensure the police officers or law enforcers do not have the right to interfere with the rights of the individuals identified in the Fourth Amendment under limited situations or circumstances and through particular methods. What does the amendment protect? In the criminal law context, the Fourth Amendment offers protections to ‘search and seizure’ with the extensions to specific elements. There is the protection against the physical apprehension or seizure of an individual by a law enforcer through stop or arrest. Besides, the amendment protects against the police searches of the places, as well as items or properties in which the individuals have legitimate privacy expectations concerning vehicles, luggage, clothing, hotel room, place of business, and apartment, among others. Based on this perspective, it is essential to note that the amendment plays a critical role in the provision of safeguards to the citizens amid searches and detentions. It is, therefore, a platform for the prevention of unlawful seizure of items and their utilization as evidence in the subsequent criminal cases. In most cases, the extent or degree of protection in specific instances depends on the nature of the arrest or detention. Besides, it may be influenced by features of the searched places and situations under which the search occurs (Donohue, 2016). It is essential to highlight that the Fourth Amendment applies to different situations. For example, when a police officer stops an individual while walking down the street, the arrest of an individual, pulling over citizens for a minor traffic infraction. Subsequently, a search of the trunk of the vehicle, and confiscation of an individual’s car or personal item to place it under control of the law enforcement officer. Based on the acquired information from the course, the courts must determine elements of a search or seizure by the Fourth Amendment. For example, if the courts determine that the conduct challenged fails to adhere to the safeguards of the Fourth Amendment, the citizens in question will not enjoy listed protection based on the amendment. For a search to occur, a government employee or law enforcer must violate the reasonable expectation of privacy of an individual. For instance, the dog-sniff inspection proves to be invalid based on the Fourth Amendment because of the violation of reasonable privacy expectations. There is also the consideration of the electronic surveillance based on this amendment to the constitution. Following the comprehension of the amendment, seizure of an individual occurs when the law enforcer executes a command communicating to a reasonable individual that he or she is not free to ignore the presence of the officer and leave at will considering the situational context. The approach is a reflection of two elements for the seizure of an individual to occur. First, there must be an element of authority, as evident in the case of the police officer, with strong indicators such as handcuffs and use of forceful language. In the second aspect, there must be the seized person submitting to the authority. The amendment protects against these two components unless there is probable cause, which relates to the reasonable belief of guilt of the suspect by the officer based on information or facts before the arrest.
References
Donohue, L. K. (2016). The Original Fourth Amendment. U. Chi. L. Rev. , 83 , 1181.
Kerr, O. S. (2016). The effect of legislation on Fourth Amendment protection. Mich. L. Rev. , 115 , 1117.
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