Fourth Amendment

Chemerinsky: The Fourth Amendment comes back to the Supreme Court

From 2021 until 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court did not decide one case involving traditional Fourth Amendment issues. But this term, there are two Fourth Amendment cases, one already decided and one to be argued this spring.

Jan 28, 2026 12:33 PM CST

Police can access Google searches without warrant, state supreme court rules

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that police investigating a rape did not need a warrant to obtain a person's Google searches, the Record reports.

Dec 19, 2025 12:39 PM CST

Immigration lawyer who criticized ICE online and on TV wins TRO after his phone is seized at airport

An immigration attorney whose phone was seized at Boston Logan International Airport has won a temporary restraining order barring the federal government from searching the phone and analyzing any data already collected.

Oct 6, 2025 12:58 PM CDT

Chemerinsky: New SCOTUS term includes cases that will have profound effect on law, American society

The October 2025 term officially begins, as always, on the first Monday in October, and once more there is a strong sense that it is going to be a momentous year in the U.S. Supreme Court. Although the justices have been officially in recess since June 27, it was a summer filled with unprecedented activity on the court’s emergency docket, as the justices considered the constitutionality of many actions taken by President Donald Trump's administration.

Sep 30, 2025 10:01 AM CDT

Kavanaugh cites precedent, ‘common sense’ in supporting SCOTUS order allowing immigration stops

Justice Brett Kavanaugh explained his agreement with a U.S. Supreme Court stay on Monday that allowed the federal government to continue making immigration stops in the Los Angeles area based on factors that include apparent ethnicity and the type of work done.

Sep 9, 2025 8:46 AM CDT

Supreme Court will decide when police don’t need warrant to enter home in emergency

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether police must have probable cause of an emergency to enter a home without a warrant or whether some lower level of suspicion suffices.

Jun 3, 2025 9:37 AM CDT

SCOTUS rejects 5th Circuit’s narrow ‘moment of threat’ test to evaluate officer’s shooting of fleeing man

Updated: The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday that a federal appeals court used a too-narrow time frame to evaluate whether a police officer’s fatal shooting of a fleeing man was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

May 15, 2025 11:51 AM CDT

Justice Department IG seeks new protections on seizing communications of lawmakers, journalists

The Justice Department during Donald Trump’s first presidential term used concerning and surreptitious tactics to obtain communications from members of Congress, their staffers and news reporters as prosecutors investigated public leaks of sensitive government information, according to a report released Tuesday by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

Dec 10, 2024 1:15 PM CST

What laws could Trump invoke to fast track deportations?

President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to invoke a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act to remove noncitizens he says are part of a “migrant invasion” in the United States. And he could try to invoke a second law to get the military involved.

Dec 10, 2024 9:45 AM CST

Can a lost phone be searched without consent? 9th Circuit will consider

“The real question is: Does someone expect that because they lost their phone that anyone who finds it—including the police—should be able to look through all their photo albums, their emails, their messages or the entire history of where they’ve been if they have location tracking on?”

Dec 1, 2024 1:00 AM CST

Lawyer alleges ‘impeachment by subterfuge’ after federal appeals judge, 97, suspended for another year

Judge Pauline Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has been suspended from hearing cases for another year amid concerns about her “cognitive state.”

Sep 9, 2024 9:44 AM CDT

5th Circuit nixes ‘general, exploratory rummaging’ of location data to find suspects

A federal appeals court's decision Friday on the constitutionality of geofence warrants has “case-of-the-year importance,” according to a law professor's blog post.

Aug 13, 2024 10:58 AM CDT

Federal appeals judge, 97, who refused to cooperate in fitness probe loses challenge to disability law

Updated: A federal judge has upheld a disability law used to suspend a 97-year-old federal appeals judge from hearing new cases while dismissing the remaining claims in her legal challenge.

Jul 9, 2024 12:20 PM CDT

Warrant required for overhead zoom-lens search that could reveal ‘intimate’ and ‘unflattering’ details, top state court says

The Alaska Constitution requires police to get a warrant if they use binoculars or cameras with zoom lenses to look into a yard from a plane, the Alaska Supreme Court has ruled.

Mar 12, 2024 1:29 PM CDT

Federal judge refuses to order reinstatement of 96-year-old federal appeals judge, her second loss in a week

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has refused to order reinstatement to new case assignments for a 96-year-old federal appeals judge who claims that the laws governing judicial disability are unconstitutional.

Feb 12, 2024 3:56 PM CST