The Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution

Subject: Law
Pages: 1
Words: 274
Reading time:
< 1 min
Study level: School

All 27 amendments of the US Constitution are immensely significant. However, this paper discusses the fourth amendment that was ratified on December 15, 1791. According to the fourth amendment, searches and seizures that are not backed up with a solid reason are prohibited. Besides, this amendment establishes criteria for search warrants. This amendment was chosen because it guarantees respect for human rights and defends citizens from police arbitrariness.

The founders established this amendment because, without it, the idea of a persons freedom and inviolability of his property and private life has no meaning. This amendment reflects the presumption of innocences idea, according to which every person is regarded as innocent until proven guilty. Furthermore, without the fourth amendment, it is impossible to create an efficient and fair justice system. Most importantly, as it has already been mentioned, the critical aim of this amendment is to protect people from the arbitrariness of the authorities.

The most evident example of the application of the fourth amendment in everyday life is that police officers cannot break into a house of whoever they want because, in this case, they will be punished for the violation of the law. Before conducting searches, a police officer should show evidence that a criminal operates in a particular place to obtain a search warrant. From one point of view, fortunately, this amendment does not relate to me because neither my relatives nor I have ever experienced searches and seizures. From another perspective, the fact that police officers have never entered my house or seized my property without reason demonstrates that this amendment affects my daily life and protects me from unreasonable searches.