Reason: Writing a Crim Pro Casebook: How Do You Cover the “Search” Question?

Reason: Writing a Crim Pro Casebook: How Do You Cover the “Search” Question? A reflection on re-writing a chapter of Kamisar LaFave & Israel by Orin Kerr:

As I mentioned recently, I spent the last three months re-writing the Fourth Amendment materials for the Kamisar LaFave and Israel Criminal Procedure casebook for the 16th edition that will be available for use this coming fall semester. The biggest challenge of writing Fourth Amendment materials in a casebook is how to cover what counts as a Fourth Amendment “search.” I thought I might write about what I think the challenge is, and how I restructured the existing material for the new edition.

Here’s the problem. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, and there is a dizzying amount of caselaw on what is a search. There are probably 50 or 60 major Supreme Court rulings on the question, and gobs of lower court cases. Further, the test itself is murky. …