4th Amendment and Exclusionary Rule

4th Amendment and Exclusionary Rule Student Name Institution Course Professor Date Introduction The 4th Amendment of the US Constitution is still one of the significant amendments of American law that define protection from searches and seizures. This paper describes the 4th Amendment's implication for police work and the consequences of violating the Fourth Amendment. Further, it will analyze some Court cases, the exclusionary rule, and various searches to determine the admissibility of items in Court. The 4th Amendment: Rights and Consequences The 4th Amendment protects citizens from “unreasonable searches and seizures,” stating that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" (Legal Information Institute, n.d.). The Amendment demands that a warrant must support a search by police, and probable cause must be present. Infringement of the 4th Amendment has consequences in the form of the Exclusionary Rule, whereby evidence obtained unlawfully in the investigation process is not admissible in Court. Precedent-Setting Court Cases The 4th Amendment has been the subject of several landmark cases that sought to determine the Amendment's applicability and meaning. Perhaps the most famous is Mapp v. Ohio (1961), which introduced the rule at the state level, according to which evidence gained in violating the 4th Amendment cannot be introduced into the state courts (Mapp v. Ohio, 1961). Another critical case is Katz v. United States (1967), where the Supreme Court held that the 4th Amendment safeguards individuals, not just places, establishing the "reasonable expectation of privacy" standard (Katz v. United States, 1967). Terry v. Ohio (1968) further clarified the scope of lawful searches, allowing "stop and frisk" procedures based on reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause (Terry v. Ohio, 1968). Collectively, these cases built the modern 4th Amendment law that governs the rights to privacy a...