Download This PaperRethinking Schneckloth v. Bustamonte
Search & Seizure Law Report, Vol. 40, No. 2, p. 9, February 2013
9 Pages Posted: 16 Apr 2013 Last revised: 25 May 2016
Date Written: February 1, 2013
Abstract
Why provide warnings to criminal suspects subject to custodial interrogation, but decline to require that citizens be informed of their right to refuse consent? And a related question: why did the Schneckloth majority opinion’s author, Justice Stewart, go so far as to assert that administering a right to refuse consent warning would be “thoroughly impractical”? This piece argues that Schneckloth should be overruled in light of dramatic changes in politics and our factual understanding of consent searches.
Keywords: consent, search, seizure, Fourth Amendment, criminal procedure, Supreme Court, history
JEL Classification: K10, K14
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation