ON JANUARY 9th a pair of cases probing the meaning of the Fourth Amendment’s bar on “unreasonable searches and seizures”—both involving vehicle privacy—were debated at the Supreme Court. Collins v Virginia concerns a hot-rod motorcycle that whizzed by police at 140 mph; in Byrd v United States, officers found 49 bricks of heroin and body armour in the boot of a car. There is little doubt the men steering these vehicles were violating the law. But in collecting evidence of the crimes, police may have violated long-standing Fourth Amendment principles.
When a police officer chased the speedy motorcycle driven by Ryan Collins, he couldn’t keep up but managed to snap some photographs and jot down its licence plate number. About six weeks later, after spotting images of the parked bike on Mr Collins’s Facebook page, the officer tracked the vehicle to the home of the suspect’s girlfriend. There, after spotting the Suzuki nosing out from under a white cover, the officer walked up the driveway and uncovered...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2qPJkCa
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