After deciding dozens of Fourth Amendment cases during the 1960s to 1980s, the United States Supreme Court thereafter reduced its output of decisions on search and seizure issues to a mere trickle. But there seems to be a change coming. In earlier postings, we reported on several cases that shook the confidence of the law enforcement community in the support that it felt it would receive from a fairly conservative high court. For example, in Illinois v. Wardlow, 120 S.Ct. 673 (2000) the Supreme Court held that running from the police, without other indicators, was not sufficient to authorize a Terry stop. (See the link to Running From the Police . . . Is It Sufficient for a Stop?). And in reporting on Florida v. J.L., 120 S.Ct. 1375 (2000) we discovered unanimously held that an anonymous and uncorroborated tip that a person possessed a gun did not justify the police stop of that individual for the purpose of conducting a frisk. (See the link to Anonymous Tip That Person Has Gun Is Not Sufficient For An "Investigatory Stop" .) There is some question of whether the police community's confidence in the Court will erode even further during the next months.

At the opening of the new term of the Supreme Court in October, 2000, the Court had at least four important search and seizure cases on its docket, all of which impact on police practices. The first case is one which we have recently mentioned at this site. See the related story about the "soccer mom" case of Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, 165 F.3d 380 (5th Cir. 1999) at our link Victims of Over-Zealous Police Officers. It's the case testing the legality of making a full-scale custodial arrest, including handcuffing, booking and jailing, for the offense of driving without a seat belt–an offense that carried a maximum penalty of a $50 fine. Earlier this month (on October 2), the Court already heard arguments on the case of City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, a 7th Circuit case reported at 183 F.3d 659 (as Edmond v. Goldsmith) in which the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of conducting drug-interdiction checkpoints at which drug detecting dogs sniff at stopped cars.

The Court also heard oral arguments in Ferguson v. City of Charleston, a 4th Circuit court opinion reported at 186 F.3d 469. In that case the Supreme Court will decide whether a pregnant woman's rights were violated when the hospital forwarded the results of a positive urine drug test to the police.