Summary. This article explains what counts as a search, when a person is seized, what reasonable suspicion and probable cause mean, how the warrant requirement and its exceptions operate, why consent is the most consequential doctrine in the area, how vehicle searches work, what the digital cases changed, when evidence is excluded and when it is not, and what a person can do during an encounter.

The Fourth Amendment is thirty-four words long. It provides that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated," and that warrants shall issue only on probable cause, supported by oath, "particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Those thirty-four words have generated a body of law of extraordinary complexity, and almost none of it is known to the people it governs. The typical encounter — a traffic stop, a knock at the door, a question in a train station — is resolved in under two minutes by a person who does not know that they are making a decision, and the decision they most often make is to consent.

This article explains what the rules actually are. It is written for the person in the encounter, for the lawyer who will later ask a judge to suppress what came of it, and for anyone who wants to understand why the answers so often turn on facts that seem beside the point.

Part I: What counts as a search

For most of American history the answer was property-based: a search occurred when the government physically trespassed on a constitutionally protected area.

The privacy test. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967) replaced that with a different question. Federal agents attached a listening device to the outside of a public telephone booth. There was no physical intrusion into the booth. The Court held it was still a search, because "the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places." Justice Harlan's concurrence supplied the enduring formulation: a search occurs where a person exhibits an actual, subjective expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable.

The property test returned. In United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), the government attached a GPS tracker to a car and monitored it for twenty-eight days. The Court held this was a search on a trespass theory — the physical occupation of private property for the purpose of obtaining information — without needing to decide the privacy question. Katz supplemented the property approach; it did not displace it. There are now two ways to establish a search, and a litigant should consider both.

What is not protected, under the third-party doctrine and related rules: information voluntarily conveyed to a third party has traditionally received no Fourth Amendment protection; garbage left at the curb; the exterior of a vehicle in public; open fields beyond the curtilage; and what is in plain view from a lawful vantage point.

The curtilage is protected. Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1 (2013) held that bringing a drug-detection dog onto the front porch of a home to investigate constituted a search. The implied license that permits a visitor to approach and knock does not extend to bringing a trained dog to sniff for evidence — the officers were on protected property for a purpose the homeowner had not licensed.

And the curtilage protection reaches the driveway. Collins v. Virginia, 584 U.S. 586 (2018) held that the automobile exception does not permit an officer to enter the curtilage of a home — there, a partially enclosed section of driveway near the house — to search a motorcycle parked there. The exception justifies searching a vehicle; it does not justify the entry required to reach it.

Part II: When is a person seized

The free-to-leave test. A seizure occurs when, in view of all the circumstances, a reasonable person would not feel free to terminate the encounter and leave. Factors: the number of officers, whether weapons were displayed, physical touching, the tone and language used, whether identification was retained, and whether the person was told they could decline.

Three tiers of encounter:

  1. Consensual encounter — an officer may approach anyone and ask questions. No suspicion required. The person may decline to answer and walk away.
  2. Investigative detention (Terry stop) — a brief seizure on reasonable suspicion, which Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) defines as specific and articulable facts, together with rational inferences, warranting the intrusion. A frisk — a pat-down of outer clothing — requires the separate additional belief that the person is armed and dangerous, and it is a search for weapons, not for evidence.
  3. Arrest — a full seizure requiring probable cause: facts and circumstances sufficient to warrant a reasonable person in believing an offense has been committed.

Passengers are seized too. Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249 (2007) held that a passenger in a stopped vehicle is seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and may therefore challenge the lawfulness of the stop.

Duration matters. Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348 (2015) held that a stop may last no longer than necessary to complete its mission, and that extending it — even for a few minutes, even for a dog sniff — requires independent reasonable suspicion. The clock, not the officer's good faith, is what the analysis turns on.

Part III: The warrant requirement

The default rule is that a search of a constitutionally protected area requires a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate on probable cause and particularly describing the place and the things.

Probable cause is assessed on the totality of the circumstances. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1983) abandoned the rigid two-pronged test for informant tips in favor of a practical, common-sense determination whether, given all the circumstances including an informant's veracity, reliability, and basis of knowledge, there is a fair probability that evidence will be found.

Particularity is what distinguishes a warrant from a general writ. A warrant authorizing a search for "evidence of criminal activity" is void; a warrant must describe what is sought with enough specificity that the executing officer's discretion is confined.

The exceptions are numerous, and in practice most searches occur under one of them: consent; search incident to lawful arrest; the automobile exception; plain view; exigent circumstances; inventory searches; administrative and special-needs searches; and searches of probationers and parolees.

Part IV: Consent — the doctrine that decides the most cases

Consent is the most frequently invoked exception and the least understood by the people who give it.

Voluntariness, not knowledge. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218 (1973) held that consent must be voluntary, assessed on the totality of the circumstances, and — the critical holding — that the government need not prove the person knew they had a right to refuse. Knowledge of the right is a factor, not a requirement. This is why the great majority of roadside searches are consent searches: the question "mind if I take a look?" is answered "go ahead" by people who do not know they can say no.

Scope. Consent extends only as far as a reasonable person would understand it. Permission to look in a trunk is not permission to dismantle a door panel. Consent may be limited when given and withdrawn at any time, and a withdrawal must be honored as to anything not already found.

Third-party consent. A person with common authority over premises may consent. But where a physically present occupant expressly objects, that objection controls as to him — a rule the Court later confined to occupants who are actually present when the objection is made.

Coercion. A consent given after an officer falsely claims a warrant, or after an unlawful detention, is invalid or tainted. The presence of many officers, drawn weapons, and a prolonged detention all bear on voluntariness.

Part V: Vehicles

Cars occupy their own category, justified by mobility and by a reduced expectation of privacy.

The automobile exception. An officer with probable cause to believe a vehicle contains evidence or contraband may search it without a warrant, including containers within it capable of holding the object of the search. No exigency need be shown beyond the vehicle's inherent mobility. But under Collins v. Virginia, 584 U.S. 586 (2018), the exception does not authorize entering the curtilage of a home to reach the vehicle.

Search incident to arrest, in a vehicle. Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009) sharply narrowed a rule that had permitted a passenger-compartment search whenever an occupant was arrested. After Gant, such a search is lawful only if (a) the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment, or (b) it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest. An arrest for driving on a suspended license — an offense for which there is no evidence to find in the car — does not justify a search under either prong.

Standing. Byrd v. United States, 584 U.S. 395 (2018) held that a driver in lawful possession of a rental car has a reasonable expectation of privacy in it even though he is not listed on the rental agreement. Lawful possession and control, not paperwork, generate the expectation.

Inventory searches of impounded vehicles are permitted if conducted according to standardized criteria and not as a pretext for investigation. The written policy is the whole issue: an inventory conducted outside the policy, or one that reaches places an inventory would not, is a search requiring justification.

Dog sniffs. A sniff of the exterior of a lawfully stopped vehicle is not itself a search — but under Rodriguez it may not extend the stop beyond its mission absent independent reasonable suspicion.

Part VI: Homes, and the exceptions that reach them

The home receives the highest protection. Warrantless entry is presumptively unreasonable.

Exigent circumstances justify entry: hot pursuit of a fleeing suspect, imminent destruction of evidence, risk of escape, and emergency aid to someone inside.

Police-created exigency. Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452 (2011) held that the exigent circumstances rule applies even where police conduct created the exigency, so long as the police did not create it by engaging or threatening to engage in conduct violating the Fourth Amendment. Knocking loudly and announcing is lawful; the sounds of destruction that follow may supply the exigency.

Pursuit of a fleeing misdemeanant is not categorical. Lange v. California, 594 U.S. 295 (2021) held that the pursuit of a person suspected of a misdemeanor does not always justify warrantless entry into a home. The officer must consider the circumstances case by case — whether there is imminent harm, destruction of evidence, or escape.

There is no freestanding "community caretaking" exception for the home. Caniglia v. Strom, 593 U.S. 194 (2021) held that the caretaking rationale recognized for vehicles does not create a standalone exception permitting warrantless entry into a home. Officers who entered to seize firearms during a welfare check, without a warrant and without a recognized exception, violated the Fourth Amendment.

Part VII: Digital

The Court's digital cases are the most significant development in Fourth Amendment law in a generation, and their logic is consistent: quantity changes quality.

Cell phones. Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014) held that police may not search the digital contents of a cell phone incident to arrest without a warrant. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that modern phones "are in fact minicomputers" holding "the privacies of life," and that calling a phone comparable to a wallet or a cigarette pack "is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon." Officers may seize and secure the phone; searching it requires a warrant.

Location data. Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018) held that acquiring historical cell-site location information is a search requiring a warrant, notwithstanding the third-party doctrine. Because CSLI provides "an all-encompassing record of the holder's whereabouts" and "a detailed chronicle of a person's physical presence compiled every day, every moment," the Court declined to extend the third-party rule to it. The opinion is expressly narrow — it does not address real-time tracking, tower dumps, conventional surveillance techniques, or foreign intelligence — but its reasoning has driven litigation over geofence warrants, keyword warrants, automated license plate readers, and purchased commercial data.

DNA. Maryland v. King, 569 U.S. 435 (2013) upheld taking a cheek swab from a person arrested for a serious offense as a legitimate booking procedure, analogizing it to fingerprinting and photographing.

Passcodes and biometrics. Compelled disclosure of a passcode raises a Fifth Amendment self-incrimination question, on which courts are split; compelled use of a fingerprint or face to unlock has been treated differently by many courts on the theory that it is not testimonial. This is unsettled law and it changes.

Part VIII: The exclusionary rule, and its many exceptions

Evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment may be suppressed. Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914) established the rule federally; Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961) applied it to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, reasoning that without exclusion the guarantee is "a form of words."

Fruit of the poisonous tree. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963) extended suppression to evidence derived from the illegality, asking whether the evidence was obtained "by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint."

But the rule has been steadily narrowed, and the modern framing is deterrence-based: exclusion applies where its deterrent benefits outweigh its substantial social costs.

  • Good faith. Evidence obtained in reasonable reliance on a warrant later found defective is generally admissible. Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135 (2009) extended this to an arrest made in reliance on a recalled warrant left in a database by negligent bookkeeping, holding that exclusion requires conduct that is "deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent," or recurring systemic negligence.
  • Independent source and inevitable discovery.
  • Attenuation. Utah v. Strieff, 579 U.S. 232 (2016) held that the discovery of a valid, pre-existing arrest warrant during an unlawful stop attenuated the taint, making evidence found in the search incident to that arrest admissible.
  • Knock-and-announce violations do not trigger suppression. Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586 (2006) held that the interests protected by the knock-and-announce rule have nothing to do with the seizure of the evidence, so exclusion is not the remedy.

Where the rule does not apply at all: grand jury proceedings, civil cases, immigration proceedings in most circumstances, parole and probation revocation hearings in many jurisdictions, and impeachment of a defendant's own testimony.

Standing. Fourth Amendment rights are personal. A defendant may only suppress evidence obtained in violation of his own rights — which is why Byrd and Brendlin matter, and why a passenger can challenge the stop but often not the search of the trunk.

Part IX: What a person can actually do

The doctrine above resolves, for the person in the encounter, into a small number of things worth knowing.

Ask whether you are free to leave. The answer determines the tier. "Am I being detained, or am I free to go?" is a lawful and useful question, asked once, calmly.

Do not consent to a search. "I do not consent to any searches" is a complete sentence. It is not obstruction, it is not evidence of guilt, and saying it does not prevent a search that is otherwise lawful — but it preserves every argument you would otherwise waive. Say it out loud, once, and do not repeat it argumentatively.

Do not physically resist. An unlawful search is remedied in court, not on the street, and resistance creates a new offense that is usually easier to prove than the original one.

You need not answer questions. Identify yourself where the law requires it, and otherwise you may decline. "I'd rather not answer questions" is enough.

At the door of a home, you need not open it. Ask whether they have a warrant, and ask them to show it or slide it under the door. Read what it authorizes: the address, the areas, and the items.

Ask for a lawyer, clearly, if questioning begins after arrest, and then stop talking.

Write everything down afterward — time, location, number of officers, what was said, what was searched, how long it took, and whether body cameras were visible.

Part X: Contexts with their own rules

Five settings depart from the ordinary framework, and confusing them for the ordinary case is a common error.

Schools. A public school official may search a student on reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause, and no warrant is required. The search must be justified at its inception and reasonable in scope in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction. Strip searches of students are subject to a substantially stricter standard, and a search that goes further than the suspected infraction plausibly warrants is unconstitutional even where the initial suspicion was sound.

Public employment. A government employer may search an employee's office, desk, or work computer for non-investigatory work-related purposes or to investigate work-related misconduct, judged by a reasonableness standard rather than a warrant requirement. The threshold question is whether the employee had a reasonable expectation of privacy at all, which depends heavily on the agency's written policies and on actual practice — a policy that reserves the right to monitor, consistently applied, largely eliminates the expectation.

Borders. The border search doctrine permits routine searches of persons and property entering the country without any suspicion. Non-routine searches — highly intrusive personal searches, and prolonged detentions — require higher justification. Forensic examination of electronic devices at the border is the live question, and the courts of appeals have divided on whether it requires reasonable suspicion, a warrant, or nothing at all. The practical advice is unchanged regardless of how that resolves: assume the least protection you have anywhere.

Probation and parole. Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868 (1987) upheld a warrantless search of a probationer's home under a regulation permitting searches on "reasonable grounds," reasoning that supervision presents special needs beyond ordinary law enforcement. United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112 (2001) upheld a search of a probationer subject to a search condition on reasonable suspicion, applying ordinary totality-of-the-circumstances reasonableness. And Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843 (2006) went further, upholding a suspicionless search of a parolee subject to a statutory search condition. The consequence: a person on supervision has dramatically reduced Fourth Amendment protection, and the terms of the release document matter enormously.

Administrative and special-needs searches. Regulatory inspections of closely regulated businesses, checkpoint programs serving purposes other than ordinary crime control, and drug testing of certain employees are evaluated under a balancing framework rather than the warrant requirement. The recurring limitation is purpose: a program whose primary purpose is general crime control does not qualify, however it is labeled.

Part XI: How a suppression motion is actually litigated

The doctrine matters only if it is presented in a motion that a judge can rule on.

Standing first. Fourth Amendment rights are personal, and the threshold question is always whether this defendant's rights were violated. A passenger may challenge the stop (Brendlin) but frequently not the search of a trunk he has no connection to. An unauthorized driver of a rental car does have standing (Byrd). A person who disclaims ownership of a bag has usually disclaimed the ability to challenge its search. Establish standing before anything else, because the government will raise it and a motion that ignores it is denied without reaching the merits.

Burdens. Where the search was conducted without a warrant, the burden is on the government to establish that an exception applies. Where there was a warrant, the burden is on the defendant to show it was invalid or its execution unlawful. This allocation is the most important tactical fact in the area, and it is why the first question in any file is: was there a warrant?

Structure the motion around a single moment. The most effective motions identify one point in the encounter and ask what the officer knew at that instant — excluding everything learned afterward. "At 10:42, when the citation had been written and the license returned, what facts supported reasonable suspicion of anything?" is a question the government must answer with the record as it stood at 10:42.

The hearing. Testimony is usually limited to the officers. The most productive cross-examination establishes the standard first and applies it second: the training, the policy, the manual, and then the video. Departures from a written policy are the most persuasive material available, because they are objective and the officer cannot dispute the document.

Attacking a warrant. Four routes: staleness (the information was too old to establish present probable cause); particularity (the description of the place or the items is too general); overbreadth in execution (the search exceeded what the warrant authorized); and a Franks challenge — showing that the affiant knowingly or recklessly included a false statement, or omitted material facts, without which probable cause fails. A Franks hearing requires a substantial preliminary showing, and it is the only route to going behind the four corners of the affidavit.

Anticipate the good-faith argument. Under the modern framing, even a defective warrant usually produces admissible evidence unless the affidavit was so lacking in indicia of probable cause that reliance on it was unreasonable, the magistrate abandoned a neutral role, or the affidavit contained knowing falsehoods. Address good faith affirmatively in the motion rather than waiting for the response.

Part XII: State constitutions, which frequently protect more

The Fourth Amendment is a floor, not a ceiling. Every state constitution contains an analogous provision, and state courts are free to interpret their own provisions more protectively — a body of law that is routinely overlooked and that decides a great many cases.

Where divergence is most common:

  • Consent searches at traffic stops. Several states require officers to advise a driver of the right to refuse, or prohibit consent requests entirely absent reasonable suspicion — rejecting Schneckloth's holding as a matter of state law.
  • The third-party doctrine. A number of states protect bank records, telephone records, and utility records under their own constitutions, having declined to follow the federal rule decades before Carpenter.
  • Garbage. Several states hold that curbside trash retains an expectation of privacy.
  • Automobile searches. Some states require a warrant despite probable cause where the vehicle has been secured and there is time to obtain one, rejecting the federal automobile exception's breadth.
  • Good faith. A significant minority of states reject the good-faith exception entirely under their own exclusionary rules, on the ground that a state exclusionary rule protects a right rather than merely deterring police.
  • Pretextual stops. Some states reject Whren and inquire into the officer's actual motivation.
  • Aerial and technological surveillance, and abandoned property, likewise diverge.

The practical instruction is short. Every suppression motion should raise both the federal provision and the state analogue, and should research the state ground first — because a state ruling resting on adequate and independent state grounds is not reviewable by the Supreme Court, and because in a meaningful number of jurisdictions the state ground is the only one that wins.

Part XII-A: Four encounters, analyzed

The traffic stop that became a search. An officer stops a car for a broken taillight at 11 p.m. He takes the license and registration to his cruiser, writes a warning, and returns at 11:14. He hands back the documents, says "you're all set" — and then asks, "Before you go, do you have anything illegal in the car? Mind if I take a quick look?" The driver says "go ahead." Drugs are found in the console.

The analysis. Two moments matter. At 11:14, when the documents were returned and the warning issued, the traffic mission was complete. Under Rodriguez, everything after that required either the driver's genuine consent to a new consensual encounter or independent reasonable suspicion. If a reasonable person in that seat would not have felt free to drive away — and the video will show whether the officer stood beside the door, retained anything, or used a tone that made leaving unthinkable — the encounter never ended, the consent was the product of a continuing seizure, and the search falls. If the encounter genuinely became consensual, Schneckloth means the driver's ignorance of the right to refuse does not matter, and the search stands.

The knock at the door. Two officers come to a house at 7 a.m. on an anonymous tip. They knock; no answer. One walks around the side of the house into the fenced back yard and looks in a window.

The analysis. Approaching the front door and knocking is within the implied license any visitor has. Walking into the fenced back yard is not — it is an entry onto curtilage for the purpose of gathering information, which Jardines treats as a search, and one no exception justifies here. Whatever was seen through that window is the fruit of it, and an affidavit resting on it is subject to a motion to excise the tainted information and test whether what remains establishes probable cause.

The arrest and the phone. A person is arrested on a warrant for failure to appear. Officers search his pockets, find a phone, and scroll through his messages at the scene.

The analysis. The pockets are fine — a full search of the person incident to a lawful custodial arrest requires no additional justification. The phone is not. Riley holds that officers may seize and secure a phone incident to arrest but may not search its digital contents without a warrant. The messages are suppressed, and anything derived from them is subject to a Wong Sun analysis.

The unlawful stop that produced a warrant. An officer stops a pedestrian with no reasonable suspicion, runs his name, and discovers an outstanding traffic warrant. He arrests on the warrant and, searching incident to that arrest, finds contraband.

The analysis. The stop was unlawful. But Utah v. Strieff, 579 U.S. 232 (2016) held that the discovery of a valid, pre-existing arrest warrant attenuates the taint, and the evidence comes in — unless the defense can show flagrant or purposeful misconduct, which is where the litigation goes. The counter-arguments live in the facts: whether stops like this one were routine in that unit, whether the officer's own testimony reveals a suspicionless practice, and whether the state constitution rejects attenuation on these facts.

What the four have in common. In each, the case turns not on whether the person was guilty but on a narrow factual question about a specific moment — when the mission ended, where the fence line was, what was searched and when, and what the officer knew before he acted. That is what a suppression motion is: an argument about one instant, litigated with a video and a timeline.

Part XII-B: The civil remedy, and why it rarely works

Suppression is not the only response to an unlawful search, and for a person never charged with anything it is no response at all — there is no case in which to suppress. The alternative is a civil action.

The vehicle. A suit against state or local officers proceeds under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for a Fourth Amendment violation committed under color of law. Against federal officers, the analogue is a Bivens action, which the Supreme Court has narrowed substantially and now rarely extends to new contexts.

Qualified immunity is the obstacle. An officer is immune unless the conduct violated a right that was clearly established at the time, defined with a high degree of specificity — which frequently requires a prior case with closely analogous facts. Many meritorious Fourth Amendment claims fail here, not because the search was lawful but because no earlier decision had addressed the particular configuration of facts.

Municipal liability is harder still. A city is not liable merely because its officer violated the Constitution. Liability requires an official policy or custom that caused the violation, or a failure to train amounting to deliberate indifference — a standard that in practice requires a pattern of similar prior violations. See Section 1983 Civil Rights Litigation.

Damages are frequently nominal. Where a search was unlawful but nothing was taken and no injury followed, the recovery may be a dollar — and a plaintiff who recovers only nominal damages will usually receive no attorney's fee, which is what makes these cases economically unavailable. See Attorneys Fees and Costs.

What is worth doing anyway.

  • File a complaint with the agency's internal affairs division and with any civilian review board. These generate records, and records generate patterns.
  • Request the body-worn camera footage promptly, in writing, before retention cycles run. Many agencies release it to the person recorded on request; where they do not, a public records request may reach it. See Requesting Public Records and Challenging a Denial.
  • Ask about property. Property seized and not needed as evidence must be returned, and there is a motion for return of property in every criminal system and a replevin action outside it. Civil forfeiture is a separate and far harder problem, with its own deadlines that run quickly.
  • Preserve your own account the same day, in writing, with times and names.
  • Consult counsel about the state analogue. Several states provide statutory damages, a state constitutional tort, or a fee-shifting provision that the federal route does not.

The honest summary. The Fourth Amendment's principal remedy is exclusion, exclusion requires a prosecution, and the civil route is narrowed by immunities that were designed to narrow it. That is a genuine gap, and it is the reason the practical advice in Part IX — decline consent, ask if you are free to leave, do not resist, write it down — matters more than it should. The most reliable protection available to an ordinary person is the one exercised at the moment of the encounter.

Part XIII: Frequently asked questions

Can police search my car at a traffic stop? Only with consent, probable cause, a valid search incident to arrest under Gant, or a lawful inventory after impoundment. A traffic violation alone does not authorize a search.

Do I have to unlock my phone? Not without a warrant — Riley requires one to search the contents. Whether you can be compelled to provide a passcode raises an unsettled Fifth Amendment question; compelled biometrics have been treated differently in many courts.

Can they search my phone at the border? Border searches are subject to a distinct doctrine with reduced protections, and the courts of appeals have divided on what forensic phone searches require. Assume less protection at the border than anywhere else.

If the search was illegal, does my case get dismissed? Not automatically. Evidence may be suppressed, which sometimes ends the case and sometimes does not — and good faith, attenuation, independent source, and inevitable discovery may defeat suppression entirely.

Can they come into my yard? The curtilage is protected. Jardines limits what may be done at the front door, and Collins prevents using the automobile exception to enter it.

What if I said "yes" and regret it? You may withdraw consent at any time as to anything not already found. Say so clearly.

Are dog sniffs searches? A sniff of a vehicle's exterior during a lawful stop is not — but it may not prolong the stop under Rodriguez, and bringing a dog to a home's front porch is a search under Jardines.

Primary authority

Related documents

This article is educational and not legal advice. State constitutions frequently provide greater protection than the Fourth Amendment, and several of these doctrines — consent, inventory searches, and digital privacy above all — differ materially by state. Consult counsel about a specific encounter.