Unconstitutional Searches The Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches is one of the most frequently litigated areas of criminal procedure. Some of the major areas covered by the...

Unconstitutional Searches

The Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches is one of the most frequently litigated areas of criminal procedure. Some of the major areas covered by the Fourth Amendment are searches of homes, persons, DNA, and traffic stops. Evidence suggests that in all of these areas, the police are often uninformed or improperly trained as to the constitutional limits of their authority. For example, in a review of hundreds of New York City Police Department cases, a report by the NYPD Civilian Complaint Review Board found 180 incidents in which police officers misapplied or misunderstood the legal standards for a search. Furthermore, 55% of the substantiated complaints involved Blacks.19 A 2016, federal monitoring report on the progress of the New York Police Department’s efforts to bring its street stops in compliance with constitutional limitations reported that one-fourth of the department’s 24,000 street stops in 2015 failed to document the suspicion that was necessary to initiate the stop and search—a mandatory requirement under the consent decree and the Constitution.²⁰
Both the reports of the NYPD Civilian Complaint Review Board and the federal monitoring report cited inadequate and improper training combined with failure of first line supervisors (sergeants) to enforce department policy as the primary causes of the unconstitutional searches. How can police departments achieve greater compliance in its officers conducting properly documented searches within constitutional limits?