Inspections and Regulatory Searches

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Chapter 7

• Inspections and Regulatory Searches

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Introduction

• administrative searches
• special needs searches
• primarily are carried out by public agencies that
  are not part of the police
• they are not aimed at investigating a specific
  crime
• burden of proof
• whether individuals and businesses are following
  local ordinances
• violation of the law typically results in a civil
  fine
• do not serve the ordinary needs of law
  enforcement
• are not undertaken to investigate a crime or to
  gather evidence of a crime
• U.S. Supreme Court the government interest in
  conducting these searches outweighs the resulting
  intrusion on individual rights

3
Administrative Inspections

• undertaken to insure that individuals and
  businesses are conforming to a broad range of
  agency regulations
• violation may result in both a civil fine and a
  criminal conviction
• criminal liability also may result when the
  administrative violation violates a separate
  criminal statute
• Camara v. Municipal Court administrative
  inspections (without a warrant) for housing code
  violations are entirely reasonable under the
  Fourth Amendment
• administrative warrants can be based on modified
  probable cause

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Admin. Insp. (cont.)

• area warrants may authorize blanket actions,
  such as the search of every building of a
  particular age or design
• See v. City of Seattle to conduct forced
  inspections, the inspector is required to
  demonstrate only that the business is the type of
  structure that is subject to inspection
• New York v. Burger closely regulated business
  exception
• evidence of a crime that is discovered in plain
  view during an administrative search may be
  seized by the police

5
Legal Equation
6
Special-Needs Searches

• intended to promote the safety and welfare of
  individuals and of the public
• two-step analysis
• to establish that the search is directed at a
  special need beyond the special needs of law
  enforcement
• evaluate the reasonableness of the search

7
Legal Equation
8
International Borders

• borders exception
• Almedia-Sanchez v. United States
• routine border searches
• nonroutine border searches

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Legal Equation
10
Motor Vehicle Checkpoints

• Delaware v. Prouse police may not pull motor
  vehicles over to spot check for drivers
  licenses and registration without reasonable
  suspicion
• United States v. Martinez-Fuerte police are
  allowed to set up immigration checkpoints
• Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz
  sobriety checkpoints, suspicionless checkpoint
  program is reasonably effective
• City of Indianapolis v. Edmond checkpoints whose
  primary purpose is the detection of narcotics are
  unconstitutional
• emphasis on public safety

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Legal Equation
12
Airport Screening

• special need to subject individuals to both a
  preboarding walk-through screening and a
  handheld magnometer wanding without reasonable
  suspicion
• special need to x-ray and to inspect carry-on and
  checked baggage for weapons and explosives
• judges have affirmed the right of airport
  personnel to conduct even more intrusive searches
  where there is an indication that a passenger may
  be in possession of a weapon or explosive
• based on the vital interest in preventing
  airborne terrorism and in providing for the
  safety and security of the public

13
Workplace Drug Testing

• concern over the sobriety of individuals working
  in the transportation industry whose job
  performance may threaten the safety of the public
• Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Association
• blood, breath, and urine tests constitute Fourth
  Amendment searches
• they do invade individuals privacy but this
  invasion is outweighed by the government interest
  in safety
• no search warrant required
• only suspicionless testing under specific
  circumstances is allowed

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Searches in High Schools

• in loco parentis
• students are entitled to constitutional rights
  and protections
• Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School
  District
• Morse v. Frederick
• New Jersey v. T.L.O.

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Drug Testing in High Schools

• Vernonia School District 473 v. Acton
• the legitimate governmental interest in carrying
  out drug tests outweighed the modest intrusion on
  the diminished privacy interests of students
• schools have a duty to protect and to educate
  children
• students have a diminished expectation of
  privacy, and athletes have even less of an
  expectation of privacy than the average student
• drug tests are conducted in a relatively
  unintrusive fashion
• teachers are not trained to make
  reasonable-suspicion determinations of drug use
• Board of Education of Independent School District
  No. 93 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls court
  upheld drug tests for athletes

16
Probation and Parole

• Griffin v. Wisconsin
• probation officers can search the home of a
  probationer if there are reasonable grounds to
  believe that contraband or any other item that a
  probationer is prohibited from possessing is
  present
• a probationer remains in legal custody of the
  state and typically is required to report to a
  probation officer and satisfy the officer that he
  or she is satisfying various conditions
• probationers and parolees enjoy only a
  conditional liberty properly dependent on
  observance of special probation restrictions

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Probation and Parole (cont.)

• United States v. Knights
• searches of probationers homes have to be
  immediately and regularly conducted
• when an officer has reasonable suspicion that a
  probationer subject to a search condition is
  engaged in criminal activity, there is enough
  likelihood that criminal conduct is occurring
  that an intrusion on the probationers
  significantly diminished privacy interests is
  reasonable
• this judgment was based on ordinary Fourth
  Amendment analysis and was not a special needs
  or administrative search case

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Correctional Institutions

• Hudson v. Palmer
• prisoners are not beyond the reach of the
  Constitution and retain those rights that are
  not fundamentally inconsistent with imprisonment
  itself or incompatible with the objectives of
  incarceration
• a right to privacy is fundamentally incompatible
  with the close and continual surveillance of
  inmates and their cells required to ensure
  institutional security and internal order

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Correctional Institutions (cont.)

• Bell v. Wolfish
• the U.S. Supreme Court approved visual cavity
  inspections in those instances in which a
  pretrial detainee or inmate returned to his or
  her cell block following a contact visit with an
  individual from outside the institution
• these visual cavity searches are reasonable
  because the need to deter the smuggling of
  weapons, drugs, and other prohibited items
  outweighed the intrusion into individuals
  privacy interests