We the People: Search and Seizure

What It Covers

The Fourth Amendment's evolution from protecting citizens against unreasonable government searches to enabling expansive police discretion, particularly through automobile and stop-and-frisk cases that disproportionately affect Black Americans.

Key Questions Answered

• •Carroll v. United States (1925): Supreme Court ruled police can search vehicles without warrants if they have probable cause, shifting Fourth Amendment authority from judges to individual officers who decide reasonableness on the spot during traffic stops.
• •Terry v. Ohio (1968): Court established reasonable suspicion standard allowing stop-and-frisk without probable cause. Officers need only articulable facts justifying suspicion, creating lower threshold for searches that civil rights groups warned would target racial minorities.
• •Whren v. United States (1996): Court ruled any traffic violation justifies a stop regardless of officer's true motivation, even racial bias. Police can follow any car until finding minor infractions like signaling violations to initiate searches.
• •Racial disparities in enforcement: Since 2017, over 1,000 people killed in traffic stop encounters, with Black Americans representing nearly one-third of deaths despite being 13% of population. Traffic stops remain most common police-citizen interaction.