The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit human rights organization founded in 1920. The organization's website has stated that the organization strives "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases where it considers civil liberties at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation or preparation of amicus curiae briefs expressing legal arguments when another law firm is already providing representation.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge or magistrate, justified by probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and must particularly describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects the liberty of married couples to use contraceptives without government restriction. The case involved a Connecticut "Little Comstock Act" that prohibited any person from using "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception". The court held that the statute was unconstitutional, and that its effect was "to deny disadvantaged citizens ... access to medical assistance and up-to-date information in respect to proper methods of birth control." By a vote of 7–2, the Supreme Court invalidated the law on the grounds that it violated the "right to marital privacy", establishing the basis for the right to privacy with respect to intimate practices. This and other cases view the right to privacy as "protected from governmental intrusion".
Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws criminalizing sodomy between consenting adults are unconstitutional. The Court reaffirmed the concept of a "right to privacy" that earlier cases had found the U.S. Constitution provides, even though it is not explicitly enumerated. It based its ruling on the notions of personal autonomy to define one's own relationships and of American traditions of non-interference with any or all forms of private sexual activities between consenting adults.
TheRutherford Institute is a conservative Christian public interest law firm dedicated to the defense of civil liberties, human rights, and religious liberties. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, the non-profit organization's motto is "its our job to make the government play by the rules of the Constitution." The organization was founded in 1982 by John W. Whitehead, who continued to be its president as of 2015. The Rutherford Institute offers free legal services to those who have had their rights threatened or violated. The Rutherford Institute has a network of affiliate attorneys across the United States and funds its efforts through donations. In addition to its offer of legal services, the organization offers free educational materials for those interested in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
A strip search is a practice of searching a person for weapons or other contraband suspected of being hidden on their body or inside their clothing, and not found by performing a frisk search, but by requiring the person to remove some or all clothing. The search may involve an official performing an intimate person search and inspecting their personal effects and body cavities. A strip search is more intrusive than a frisk and requires legal authority. Regulations covering strip searches vary considerably and may be mandatory in some situations or discretionary in others.
A body cavity search, also known simply as a cavity search, is either a visual search or a manual internal inspection of body cavities for prohibited materials (contraband), such as illegal drugs, money, jewelry, or weapons. Body cavities frequently used for concealment include the mouth, vagina, and rectum. It is far more invasive than the standard strip search that is typically performed on individuals taken into custody, either upon police arrest or incarceration at a jail, prison, or psychiatric hospital. Often the procedure is repeated when the person leaves the institution.
Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that helped to establish an implied "right to privacy" in U.S. law in the form of mere possession of obscene materials.
Atwater v. Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318 (2001), was a United States Supreme Court decision which held that a person's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the subject is arrested for driving without a seatbelt. The court ruled that such an arrest for a misdemeanor that is punishable only by a fine does not constitute an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520 (1979), is a case in which the United States Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of various conditions of confinement of inmates held in federal short-term detention facilities. The Court narrowly found that while treatment of pre-trial detainees is subject to constraint by the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments,[2] all of the policies challenged in the case passed constitutional scrutiny.
"Stop and identify" statutes are laws in several U.S. states that authorize police to lawfully order people whom they reasonably suspect of committing a crime to state their name. If there is not reasonable suspicion that a person has committed a crime, is committing a crime, or is about to commit a crime, the person is not required to identify himself or herself, even in these states.
Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586 (2006), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a violation of the Fourth Amendment requirement that police officers knock, announce their presence, and wait a reasonable amount of time before entering a private residence does not require suppression of the evidence obtained in the ensuing search.
Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405 (2005), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held that the use of a drug-sniffing police dog during a routine traffic stop does not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, even if the initial infraction is unrelated to drug offenses.
South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364 (1976), elaborated on the community caretaking doctrine. Under the Fourth Amendment, "unreasonable" searches and seizures are forbidden. In addition to their law-enforcement duties, the police must engage in what the court has termed a community caretaking role, including such duties as removing obstructions from roadways to ensure the free flow of traffic. When the police act in this role, they may inventory cars they have seized without "unreasonably" searching those cars.
Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67 (2001), is a United States Supreme Court decision that found Medical University of South Carolina's policy regarding involuntary drug testing of pregnant women to violate the Fourth Amendment. The Court held that the search in question was unreasonable.
Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause prohibits the imposition of the death penalty for a crime in which the victim did not die and the victim's death was not intended.
Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295 (1999), is a United States Supreme Court case which held that absent exigency, the warrantless search of a passenger's container capable of holding the object of a search for which there is probable cause is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution because it is justified under the automobile exception as an effect of the car.
United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that installing a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on a vehicle and using the device to monitor the vehicle's movements constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment.
Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court case which resulted in the decision that police use of a trained detection dog to sniff for narcotics on the front porch of a private home is a "search" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and therefore, without consent, requires both probable cause and a search warrant.
Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517 (1984), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that prison inmates have no privacy rights in their cells protected by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court also held that an intentional deprivation of property by a state employee "does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment if an adequate postdeprivation state remedy exists," extending Parratt v. Taylor to intentional torts.
