Terry v. Ohio (Stop-and-Frisk) (1968)
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- United States v. Robinson (Search incident to arrest) (1973)
- United States v. Dionisio
- United States v. Mara (Handwriting analysis) (1973)
- Cupp v. Murphy (Scraping under an arrestee’s fingernails) (1973)
- Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives’ Association (Testing blood, urine, breath of public employees in safety positions) (1989)
- Veronica School District v. Acton (Drug testing student athletes) (1995)
- Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls, et al. (Drug testing students) (2002)
- Safford Unified School District v. Redding (Strip searching students) (2006)
- Florence v. County of Burlington (Strip searching arrestees) (2012)
- *United States v. Jones (Use of GPS tracking technology) (2012)
- Missouri v. McNeely (Warrantless drawing of blood in DWI) (2013)
- Maryland v. King (Taking an arrestee’s DNA) (2013)
- Florida v. Jardines (2013)
- United States v. Place (1983)
| A Selection of Supreme Court Cases involving the
Fourth Amendment & the Body
The U.S. Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is not violated when a police officer stops a suspect on the street and frisks him or her without probable cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person "may be armed and presently dangerous.”
The U.S. Supreme Court held that "in the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, but is also a reasonable search under that Amendment."
In a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that the compelled production of the voice exemplars would not violate the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches or seizures. Justice Stewart explained, “the Fourth Amendment provides no protection for what a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office. The physical characteristics of a person's voice, its tone and manner, as opposed to the content of a specific conversation, are constantly exposed to the public. Like a man's facial characteristics, or handwriting, his voice is repeatedly produced for others to hear. No person can have a reasonable expectation that others will not know the sound of his voice, any more than he can reasonably expect that his face will be a mystery to the world.”
Also a 6-3 decision, and issued the same day as Dionisio, the Court ruled that the compelled production of handwriting exemplars would not be unreasonable searches or seizures under the Fourth Amendment. “Handwriting, like speech, is repeatedly shown to the public, and there is no more expectation of privacy in the physical characteristics of a person's script than there is in the tone of his voice.”
Upon receiving word of his ex-wife's murder, Daniel Murphy promptly telephoned the Portland police and voluntarily came into the police station for questioning. Shortly after arrival at the station house where he was represented by counsel, the investigating police noticed a dark spot on the respondent's finger. Suspecting that the spot might be dried blood and knowing that evidence of strangulation is often found under the assailant's fingernails, the police asked Murphy if they could take a sample of scrapings from his fingernails. He refused. Under protest and without a warrant, the police proceeded to take the samples, which turned out to contain traces of skin and blood cells, and fabric from the victim's nightgown. This incriminating evidence was admitted at the trial. Daniel Murphy was convicted by a jury in an Oregon court of the second-degree murder of his wife. In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled that when police have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, the Fourth Amendment permits the limited search of a suspect during a brief detention in a stationhouse when there exists a risk that the suspect may destroy readily destructible evidence and the scope of the search is limited to vindicating this interest.
Recognizing the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse by railroad employees, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) implemented regulations requiring mandatory blood and urine tests of employees involved in certain train accidents. Other FRA rules allowed railroads to administer breath and urine tests to employees who violate certain safety rules. In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the government's interest in assuring safety on the nation's railroads constituted a "special need" which justified a departure from standard warrant and probable-cause requirements in searches.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court concluded that the random drug testing of high school athletes through urinalysis does not violate the reasonable search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment. The reasonableness of a search is judged by "balancing the intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against the promotion of legitimate governmental interests." High school athletes, who are under state supervision during school hours, are generally subject to greater control than over free adults. The state has a strong interest in protecting minors, and intrusion is minimal, the Court said.
In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the ability of schools to rid their campuses of illegal drugs outweighs an individual's right to privacy. The decision allows schools to test students who participate in any competitive after-school programs for drug use, even without any particular suspicion of wrongdoing.
In a 7-2 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a strip search of a middle schooler violated the Fourth Amendment where the school lacked reasons to suspect either that the drugs the girl allegedly had in her possession (Ibuprofen) presented a danger or that they were concealed in her underwear. Police had received a report that the student had given a classmate four prescription-strength 400 mg ibuprofen and a 200 mg over-the-counter naproxen. No drugs were found in the student’s possession.
In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S Supreme Court upheld a local law-enforcement policy that required officials to strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband. “Every detainee who will be admitted to the general population may be required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed,” Justice Kennedy wrote. Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the four dissenters, said the strip searches the majority allowed were “a serious affront to human dignity and to individual privacy” and should be used only when there was good reason to do so.
In a 9-0 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court found that law enforcement personnel committed a search for purposes of the Fourth Amendment rights when they physically attached a GPS devise to the vehicle of a drug suspect and used it to electronically monitor the vehicle’s movements around the clock for more than a month. The case left open the question of whether purely electronic monitoring of a suspect’s movements would be considered a search. Under the rational of the ruling, it is likely a physical attachment of a tracking device to the body or clothing of a person would likewise be found constitute a “search” for Fourth Amendment purposes.
In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that in drunk-driving investigations, the fact that alcohol in the bloodstream dissipates relatively quickly, making it difficult to determine from a test result whether a person driving was drunk unless the test is conducted immediately, does not constitute an exigency (i.e. an emergency situation excusing the warrant requirement) in every case. The case involved a suspected drunk driver who refused to take a breath test or blood test; the patrolman who stopped took him to a hospital, and without getting a warrant, ordered hospital technicians to draw blood from the handcuffed suspect. Justice Sottomayor observed: “[T]hough a blood test conducted in a medical setting by trained personnel is less intrusive than other bodily invasions, this Court has never retreated from its recognition that any compelled intrusion into the human body implicates significant, constitutionally protected privacy interests.”
In a 5-4 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court found police do not violate the Fourth Amendment by taking DNA samples from all people arrested in connection with serious crimes and depositing them in a national DNA database. "Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court's five-justice majority. The ruling backed a Maryland law allowing DNA swabbing of people arrested for serious crimes. Going to the Dogs Although not strictly “body” cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided a number of dog-sniff cases. To what degree is our “scent” ours?
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