POLICE SEARCH AND SEIZURE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE 4TH AMENDMENT

POLICE SEARCH AND SEIZURE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE 4TH AMENDMENT
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POLICE SEARCH AND SEIZURE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE 4TH AMENDMENT
The 4th amendment in the American constitution prohibits unwarranted seizures and searches by law enforcers. The fourteenth constitutional amendment imposes the regulation in the 4th amendment upon all the law enforcement agencies in all the American states. However, reasonable searches are not prohibited. Searches that are prohibited are those that can be deemed unreasonable. The 14th amendment in the US Constitution is not extended to include protection of people’s rights to include all aspects of their private matters (US Bill of Rights).
The main aim of a search is to unravel evidence, which can then be seized by the law officers. On the other hand, the aim of a seizure is to obtain evidence, which could be used by the police against the defendant for prosecution purposes in the case of criminal proceedings. Under the US constitution, a stop may be termed as a search and an arrest as a seizure. Unreasonable seizure however, violates not only the 14th amendment in the US constitution but also the 4th amendment, and it is termed as “illegal or prohibited search”.
The 14th Amendment to the US constitution is based on the aspect that all American citizens have rights to a reasonable form of privacy, which should not be infringed anyhow. However, those rights are not unlimited. In recent times, there have been cases where law enforcement officers take liberties by stopping or arresting citizens anyhow even when there is nor clear reason of doing so. This is a cause of concern for law-abiding citizens, who have specific rights not only to their privacy but also to their freedom.

Search and Seizure and the Fourth Amendment
There are factors that are supposed to be considered in order for a search warrant to be considered valid under the 4th amendment. It must firstly explain the place where the search will be conducted and the objects or persons to be seized. In accordance to this amendment, the aim of this prerequisite is to curb “a generalised, exploratory invasion into a person’s private matters” (Andresen v. Maryland, Coolidge v. New Hampshire, Stanford v. Texas) and other cases can be used vividly to describe the requirements for a valid search warrant. A valid search warrant contains the subject and search, such that the executing officer is not just left to perform the search on his or her own discretion. However, if sufficient evidence is obtained as a result of the search which did not adhere to the warranty requirement, then the evidence could justify the search under the 4th amendment even though the search could have been deemed invalid See United States v. Leon. This aspect however, leaves a loophole for the police officers to misuse their powers on the same cause it was supposed to curb.
The Fourth Amendment protects the citizen’s rights and private matters with regard to unreasonable search and seizures. In interpreting the amendment, the judges in most cases are guided by the traditional approaches to unwarranted seizures and searches that are held by the common law. A scrutiny of the common law interpretation of the police obligation to seize will be based on the common sense application with regard to this matter. Common sense will depict that it is an infringement of one’s rights by poking into his or her private matters irrespective of the status of the person doing it; whether it is the police officer or the president of the state (Atwater v. City of Lago Vista Payton v. New York).
The requirement of a reasonable cause for a search warrant applies to all types of seizures, searches, and or arrests with no necessity of balancing the interests and conditions involved under specific situations (Dunaway v. New York). If a law enforcement officer has some degree of reason to conduct a seizure on a person who he believes may be engaging in criminal activities, then he may not be bridging the fourth amendmen...