The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with its ban on "unreasonable searches and seizure," is the constitutional provision that, more directly than any other, governs police operations and administrative investigations (Hall. 1992). The Amendment emerges as one element in the effort to clarify the rights of individuals vis-à-vis governmental powers by balancing these rights against the legitimate need of society, doing so through its authorized governmental agencies in order to secure and maintain order and to execute the law. The Amendment is, according to some analysts, problematic in that it gives very limited details on how to deal with numerous search situations (Hall, 1992). Other Amendments (e.g., the 6th, 8th, and 14th) have also been addressed by the Courts in pursuit of confirmation of suspects' rights and the limits of state power.
Because this is the case, numerous Supreme Court rulings have been handed down in the past several decades in an effort to clarify the extent of protection accorded to individuals suspected of illegal actions and the corresponding power of law enforcement and other agencies to obtain evidence from or about these individuals. Beginning with the Warren Court's 1961 ruling in Mapp v. Ohio (1961) 367 IU.S. 643, the Court has moved toward excessive attention to the rights of suspects in this and other areas while diminishing the capacity of the police and other agencies to execute their duties. Several Court rulings illustrate this issue and serve to demonstrate that in many areas, police and investigatory powers have been eroded in an effort to protect individual rights, thus hamstringing the authorities as they attempt to execute their responsibility.
The critical question today is whether or not the Courts have tended, over time, to broadly interpret the various Amendments to the Constitution that address the relative rights of citizens and the authority or power of the Sta...