¶ … 4th Amendment's evolution and history, together with the "search and seizure" law.
4th Amendment Background
People's rights of being secure in personal effects, papers, houses and persons, against unreasonable seizures and searches, may not be breached, nor shall any warrants be issued, but in case of probable cause, which is supported by affirmation or oath, and describes, particularly, the place that must be searched, or the things or individuals that should be seized, under the 4th Amendment. Like most fields in U.S. law, the English common law forms the principal basis of the 4th Amendment. Broadly, it was created for limiting governmental powers and their capacity of enforcing legal actions upon citizens (4th Amendment - constitution -- Laws.com). Amendment IV was implemented in immediate reaction to the historical writ of assistance's abuse. This writ was a sort of general governmental search warrant employed in the American Revolution's era. Amendment IV was created for limiting law enforcement powers when searching any American resident's personal property. It comes under the "Bill of Rights" - the first ten Constitutional Amendments together with the framework for explaining individual freedoms. These Amendments were put forward and directed to states during the first Congressional session of America's First Congress, under George Washington's presidency. They amendments were ratified later on 15th December, 1791. James Madison introduced these Amendments as a collection of statutory articles, which became effective as Amendments after the ratification process by 75% States.
Amendment IV constitutes the richest source of American constitutional litigation, especially with state application, following its incorporation via Amendment XIV's clause of "Due Process." It has a tremendously broad reach: of the several million arrests made per annum in the U.S., each one marks an Amendment IV event (Guide to the Constitution). Similarly, all searches made of private areas or individuals by public officials (who can be policemen, schoolteachers, airport security officers, crossing guards, or probation officers). Amendment IV is a constitutional custodian of individuals' privacy, when it gets diminished due to a governmental seizure or search. It safeguards citizens' legitimate privacy expectations. According to law, the term "legitimate" implies a real expectation of individual privacy, considered by society as "reasonable." When defining this phrase, Amendment IV's reasonableness clause has generated considerable litigation.
Constitutional Founders' attention to protecting citizens against unwarranted seizures and searches (and in mandating the producing of particularized warrants, according to the Amendment's succeeding Warrant Clause) stems from three famous cases of the 18th century, one from a colony and two from Britain. The two English cases, Wilkes v. Wood and Entick v. Carrington, involved pamphleteers in opposition to the government. They were apprehended, and their papers and books all seized (in the former case, all papers belonging to 49 friends of Mr. Wilkes'). Law enforcement used warrants that did not mention the places or names of suspects that could be searched. Seizing agents were sued by both defendants for trespass. The cases were decided in favor of Wilkes and Entick (Guide to the Constitution).
Law of Search and Seizure in England and Colonies/Formative Years of United States
Amendment VI forbids personal and privacy violations from unwarranted infringement by authorities of the State. The Founders were very clear on what must be deemed as "unreasonable," since they had a first-hand experience of it, under English rule. Before the American Revolution, the English claimed power to furnish writs of assistance enabling law enforcers to force their way into businesses and private homes for seeking proof of smuggling activities. These general search warrants empowered holders to search wherever they desired for smuggled items, and failed to specify which goods to look for or the place to look for them (Fourth Amendment: The History Behind "Unreasonable"). The writs had no expiry date and were regarded as an acceptable alternative to specific warrants. They could also be transferred, and were actually in contradiction to English legal tradition. Sir Edward Coke, the English Attorney General, maintained in the year 1604, in regard to the Semayne Case, that law possessed no unlimited authority of entering private dwellings.
Few Bill of Rights provisions have grown so directly from colonial experience as the 4th Amendment, which embodies safeguarding of citizens against 'writ of assistance' utilization. However, though the claim on liberty from unreasonable seizures and searches as a basic gained late expression among the Colonies and owing to experience, a rich British experience could also be found, on which to draw (Annotation 1 - Fourth Amendment -- FindLaw). A much-celebrated English tenet demonstrated in the 1603 Semayne Case was that everybody's...
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