Arguments Against The 4th Amendment

The Fourth Amendment provides people with the right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Courts have long recognized that the Forth Amendment protected individuals from unjustified police intrusions into one’s person, home, car, or other possessions, but few practical protection mechanisms existed. To preserve these constitutional guarantees, the Supreme Court established standards by which police officers must abide. One such protection has been the probable cause — a belief that the person committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. In order to uphold an arrest or seizure, courts have required a probable cause combined with either a warrant or circumstances
The exclusionary rule “enabled the judiciary to avoid the taint of partnership in official lawlessness,’’ and it “assured the people—all potential victims of unlawful government conduct—that the government would not profit from its lawless behavior, thus minimizing the risk of seriously undermining popular trust in government.” In Mapp v. Ohio, the Court extended the exclusionary rule to the states. In combination, these safeguards provided formidable protection of Forth Amendment rights.
Soon thereafter, however, the Court began to loosen the restriction it had put in place. In Brinegar v. United States, the Court held that police officers do not need to always be factually correct in conducting a warrantless search. The Court reasoned that “[b]ecause many situations which confront officers in the course of executing their duties are more or less ambiguous, room must be allowed for some mistakes on their part.” However, the Court allowed only reasonable mistakes in order to avoid leaving “law-abiding citizens at the mercy of the officers' whim or