Fourth Amendment Legal Opinions Review

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering landmark Supreme Court cases and legal doctrines regarding the Fourth Amendment based on the provided lecture excerpts.

Katz v. United States ($1967$)

Ruled that the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places, focusing on what an individual seeks to preserve as private.

Twofold requirement for privacy

A standard from Justice Harlan's concurrence in Katz requiring an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.

Curtilage

The area immediately adjacent to a home, such as a yard, that is intimately linked to the home and personal privacy where expectations of privacy are heightened.

California v. Ciraolo ($1986$)

A case ruling that police observation of a curtilage from public navigable airspace at an altitude of $1,000\,\text{feet}$ does not violate a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Kyllo v. United States ($2001$)

A case holding that using sense-enhancing technology not in general public use to explore details of the interior of a home constitutes a search and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant.

Illinois v. Caballes ($2005$)

A decision finding that a narcotics-detection dog sniff of the exterior of a vehicle during a lawful traffic stop does not infringe on legitimate privacy interests.

Sui generis

A term used in United States v. Place and referenced in Caballes to describe a canine sniff as unique because it only discloses the presence or absence of contraband.

United States v. Jones ($2012$)

A case determining that the physical installation of a GPS device on a vehicle to monitor its movements is a Fourth Amendment search based on common-law trespass principles.

Effect

A term in the Fourth Amendment's text that encompasses a vehicle, as noted in the ruling of United States v. Jones.

Illinois v. Gates ($1983$)

A case that established the totality-of-the-circumstances standard for determining probable cause, replacing rigid requirements for informant veracity and basis of knowledge.

Probable cause

A fluid, nontechnical concept based on the assessment of probabilities and practical considerations of everyday life rather than a neat set of legal rules.

Totality-of-the-circumstances

The analysis used by an issuing magistrate to make a common-sense decision on whether there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence will be found in a particular place.