The Fourth Amendment:'Be Reasonable'

Abstract:     
The attached piece, entitled The Fourth Amendment: 'Be Reasonable,' is a chapter in a forthcoming book, The Rehnquist Legacy, to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2005. The book is a comprehensive legal biography of the Chief Justice in which leading scholars examine his legacy in diverse areas of constitutional law, including criminal procedure. This chapter examines Rehnquist's voluminous Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. While Rehnquist has not authored any single path-breaking case in this area, the chapter shows his success, across the board, in achieving his stated goal of calling a halt to the pro-defendant rulings of the Warren Court in the criminal procedure area. However, Rehnquist has not succeeded in his principal goal: overruling Mapp v. Ohio's application of the exclusionary rule to the states.

Keywords: Rehnquist, Fourth Amendment, search warrants

Accepted Paper Series