The Fourth Amendment is a great representation of the freedoms that the founders of the United States sought to establish in this country. This same freedom plays a key role in shaping every day police work as well as cases in court. These same ideals have also caused some hardship for law enforcement officers that neglect to yield to proper procedure. Some aspects that have been created from that very ideal allow criminals to avoid prosecution due to technicalities. Yet, the Fourth Amendment and all law that stems from it are important aspects that shape everyday law enforcement. The reach of the Fourth amendment is incredibly extensive, to the point that every one of the millions of arrest made annually is a Fourth Amendment event (Bradley).
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Yet unlike the rest of the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment can be traced precisely to three cases from the 1760s (Search and Seizure: Origins, Text, And History). Two of which were decided in England and the last in the colonies, all three cases sparked strong reactions of the public (Search and Seizure: Origins, Text, And History). The first two cases were held in England and were treated as a pair. Both Wilkes v. Wood, 19 Howell’s States Trials 1153(C.P. 1763), and Entick v. Carrington, 19 Howell’s State Trials 1029 (C.P. 1765), involved pamphleteers charged with seditious libel of criticizing the King’s minister and by extension, the King himself (Search and Seizure: Origins, Text, And History). In both cases, agents of the king issued warrants authorizing the ransacking of the defendant’s houses and the seizure of all books and papers within (Search and Seizure: Origins, Text, And History). While warrants in modern day America require the signature of a magistrate and probable cause under oath or affirmation, seventieth and eighteenth-century English common law warrants could be written by any agents of the King and for any
Yet unlike the rest of the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment can be traced precisely to three cases from the 1760s (Search and Seizure: Origins, Text, And History). Two of which were decided in England and the last in the colonies, all three cases sparked strong reactions of the public (Search and Seizure: Origins, Text, And History). The first two cases were held in England and were treated as a pair. Both Wilkes v. Wood, 19 Howell’s States Trials 1153(C.P. 1763), and Entick v. Carrington, 19 Howell’s State Trials 1029 (C.P. 1765), involved pamphleteers charged with seditious libel of criticizing the King’s minister and by extension, the King himself (Search and Seizure: Origins, Text, And History). In both cases, agents of the king issued warrants authorizing the ransacking of the defendant’s houses and the seizure of all books and papers within (Search and Seizure: Origins, Text, And History). While warrants in modern day America require the signature of a magistrate and probable cause under oath or affirmation, seventieth and eighteenth-century English common law warrants could be written by any agents of the King and for any