Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The Fourth Amendment protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures by the U.S. government and sets requirements for warrants.

Search and seizure: Government actions that intrude on privacy or control of a person or property to investigate suspected wrongdoing. The amendment regulates these investigative acts, subject to constitutional standards.
Mapp v. Ohio: A 1961 Supreme Court decision applying the exclusionary rule to state criminal prosecutions. It made exclusion a remedy in state cases as well as federal ones.
Search incident to arrest: A warrant exception permitting searches of an arrested person and certain areas within immediate reach. It allows defined searches without a separate warrant after a lawful arrest.
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution: A constitutional amendment protecting rights including due process and the privilege against compelled self-incrimination. It addresses compelled testimony, unlike the Fourth Amendment's regulation of searches and seizures.
Writ of assistance: A broad search warrant used by British officials in colonial America to enforce trade laws. Colonial opposition to these open-ended searches helped shape the amendment's warrant limits.
Reasonable expectation of privacy: A test for whether government conduct intrudes on privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment. The test helps determine whether conduct counts as a search requiring constitutional justification.
Katz v. United States: A 1967 Supreme Court decision holding that electronic eavesdropping on a phone booth required constitutional scrutiny. Its privacy formulation reshaped how courts identify searches.
Automobile exception: A warrant exception allowing a vehicle search when probable cause supports finding evidence or contraband inside. It reflects the mobility of vehicles and the probable-cause requirement.
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution: A constitutional amendment whose Due Process Clause applies many Bill of Rights protections to the states. It is the route through which the Fourth Amendment binds state and local governments.
General warrant: A warrant authorizing searches without precisely identifying the place or items involved. The amendment's particularity requirement rejects this form of discretionary search authority.

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