Special Needs Searches
The warrant and probable cause requirement as per the Fourth Amendment is exempted if the government has special needs which are beyond the typical need for law enforcement in the collection of evidence when investigating crimes. As a result, the warrant and probable cause demands are not practical. Special needs searches have various aspects which make them stand out. For instance, special needs search target people at large rather than specific suspects and defendants, the evidence collected can lead to criminal prosecution and conviction through a court of law, there are no requirements on probable cause and a warrant, and their rationale lies on balancing special government needs in line with maintaining individual privacy. Inventory searches, on the other hand, entail the examination and listing of private property and containers in custody in various government agents. The process involves a visual inspection and the contents listed before they are kept safe. For example, property in jail and impounded vehicles. Searches prompted by special needs include airport searches, administrative, inventory, custody-related, and international border searches, prenatal patient and employee drug testing. Inventory searches aim at meeting the following targets: meeting a balance of interest, enhancing the safety of private property in police custody thereby avoiding lawsuits on theft or distraction (Carbado, 2017). Furthermore, the law enforcement premises and personnel are protected from dangerous possessions. According to the set standard procedure, neither reasonable suspicion nor probable cause provides for discretion. The exemption set on border search holds that the searches done at international borders are considered rational despite the lack of a probable cause and warrants. The interest by the government to protect who and what gets in the country form the basis for strip searches done to investigate possession of weapons and contraband call for justified suspicion. On the other hand, body-cavity searches demand probable cause.
As per the United States’ Supreme Court, airport searches are valid despite the lack of probable cause and rational distrust. The primary objective in carrying out searches at airports is to safeguard the safety of those on board. The existing needs to carry out the searches exceeds the least invasion of privacy of the individuals. For illustration, in the case of Marybeth G vs. City of Chicago women apprehended for misconduct offences, for instance, unpaid parking tickets were subjected to searches. The women were strip-searched by matrons in the cells whose maintenance was under the City of Chicago as they were waiting for money to pay the bail. The strip searches were in line with the policy set by the city from the year 1952 to 1980 (Lancaster, 2016). The policy demanded the strip searching and a visual inspection of the various body cavities for women in the City ran lockups. The searches were done regardless of the charges against the women and if the officers who made the arrest or those working in the lockups had substantial reasons to consider that the women were hiding contraband or weapons on their bodies. On the other side, the men were not subjected to the policy but went through a detailed hand search.
Probationers and parolees have lessened the Fourth Amendment rights due to various reasons to serve special needs. Those on probation and parole are still under the state custody even if they are not incarcerated. The individuals are in a legal agreement to searches giving them consent. There is a balance created by keeping the society safe from recidivism with the limited invasion of the privacy of those on parole. Some law courts consider the conditional release, not as a right but a privilege. Hence, those on parole and probation are enjoying conditional liberty. Consequently, searches done on probationers’ homes only call for a justified suspicion. Parolees, on the other hand, can have their homes searched with neither warrants nor individualized rational distrust. As a result, individuals on parole have lower expectations on privacy compared to those on probation. In line with the legal doctrine in loco parentis, the school governors serve as parents while the students are in school. Courts ought to determine the special need for schools to keep a suitable environment for learning considering the students’ privacy. The school officials only require justified suspicion to comb students and their possessions. The United States Supreme Court has never done a ruling on the soundness of the searches on students’ dormitories (Lee, et al., 2015). There is a difference in the approach taken by private and public colleges. Employers also conduct drug tests to investigate the use of drugs in the workforce. Conducting employee drug testing aims at the special need to cut the hazard to the public safety done by bus drivers, engineers and pilots to mention a few professionals who are under the influence of drugs while at work. The searches are considered reasonable for particular employees of the public without a warrant or individualized suspicion as long as they are conducted as per the administrative rules and regulations. Administrative searches are inspections of homes or businesses by government agents done routinely. The searches aim at evaluating the compliance with the set of regulations and statutes. The goal is to enforce provisions on health, housing codes, safety, fire and licensing.
Prevalently, administrative searches do not lead to criminal prosecution. The following places are subjected to administrative searches without a warrant: mines, places selling guns, scrap metal dealers and junkyards for example (Carbado, 2017). The entry into a firefight does not call for a warrant. Thereby, an administrative warrant is applicable where there are no exceptions, and the owner keeps up a REOP. The phenomena that can justify a search without a warrant to identify the fire cause might fail to justify a search to collect criminal activity upon the determination of the cause. A person who has been convicted of a serious crime despite serving time in a correctional facility may not enjoy the privileges of the Fourth Amendment like free citizens. It is prevalent for felons to face certain prohibitions due to the convictions. For instance, sitting on a jury, owning a gun, or voting. However, the prohibitions have not stretched out to limit the rights under the Fourth Amendment despite the severity of the crime committed. A recent opinion by the Seventh Circuit in Belleau v. Wall might have created a chance for curtailing the expectations of privacy as per the Fourth Amendment based on their previous convictions of similar offences.
Rationale and Justification
Similar to the District Court in Belleau, it is crucial to point out that the matter at hand is not if a person formerly convicted of sexually harassing a minor to Global Positioning system in a lifetime for the offence. Furthermore, it is not the issue that an individual under the legal supervision of the state, for instance, probation, supervised release or parole can be forced to adhere to GPS tracking while under the supervision of the state (Lee, et al., 2015). Hence, the matter being addressed by Belleau is if the state has the capacity as per the law to create a limit on the protection of the Fourth Amendment for persons on the foundations on previous felony convictions. It is not possible to overstate the public’s interest in protecting the minors from any form of sexual assault. The thought evokes a little sympathy that an individual who commits murders of children may fail to enjoy privacy similar to ordinary citizens. In the efforts to keep the children safe, state lawmakers have enacted regulation forming a system used in the electronic monitoring of sex offenders after the release from incarceration.
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