United States Constitutional Law The constitutional law of the United States is the body of law governing the interpretation and implementation of the United States Constitution. The subject concerns the scope of power of the United States federal government compared to the indi ...

, a minimally intrusive/invasive warrantless search is a type of

search Searching or search may refer to: Computing technology * Search algorithm, including keyword search ** :Search algorithms * Search and optimization for problem solving in artificial intelligence * Search engine technology, software for find ...

that does not breach the boundaries of the property and is performed without any prerequisite

search warrant A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to confiscate any evidence they find. In most countries, ...

. These searches are contested regularly in courts, and have been ruled for and against under different circumstances. The primary debate concerns the method in which the search is conducted, and also the area being searched. Issues concerning warrantless search and subsequent

seizure An epileptic seizure, informally known as a seizure, is a period of symptoms due to abnormally excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. Outward effects vary from uncontrolled shaking movements involving much of the body with lo ...

are always of local concern, because they are a community

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term ...

issue as well as a national law issue. Debate centers on whether the home holds special legal sanctity against warrantless search, unlike an automobile. Automobiles stopped on public roads can be searched without warrants because the searched party is still on public property. Warrantless searches can also be performed in public buildings, such as museums and airports. However, because the home is the private property of the owner, homes have different protections against warrantless searches. The

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

has addressed these issues in a number of cases.

''Katz v. United States''

In ''

Katz v. United States ''Katz v. United States'', 389 U.S. 347 (1967), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court redefined what constitutes a "search" or "seizure" with regard to the protections of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constituti ...

'', , electronic eavesdropping devices attached to the outside of a phonebooth or a home were deemed to violate the unreasonable search and seizure clause of the

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. In addition, it sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge o ...

, because the interior private life of the homeowners was exposed along with information about illegal activity. Overruling '' Olmstead v. United States'' and '' Goldman v. United States'', the Court ruled that this minimally intrusive bugging for the purpose of exposing illegal activity was unconstitutional, because it intruded on private civilian life.White, Welsh S., and James J. Tomkovicz. Criminal Procedure: Constitutional Constraints upon Investigation and Proof. Newark, NJ: LexisNexis Matthew Bender, 2004. (p. 6). This is precedence for protecting civilians against minimally invasive means of exposing criminal activity.

''Kyllo v. United States''

In ''

Kyllo v. United States ''Kyllo v. United States'', 533 U.S. 27 (2001), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the court ruled that the use of thermal imaging devices to monitor heat radiation in or around a person's home, even if conducted fro ...

'', , the Court held that the use of a

thermal imaging Infrared thermography (IRT), thermal video and/or thermal imaging, is a process where a thermal camera captures and creates an image of an object by using infrared radiation emitted from the object in a process, which are examples of infrared ...

device from a public vantage point to monitor the radiation of heat from a person's home to identify home drug cultivation was deemed unconstitutional, because in addition to exposing illegal activity without a warrant, the privacy of the home was compromised. This case specifically highlights this duality: the right to privacy protected by the

, and the denial of right to

contraband Contraband (from Medieval French ''contrebande'' "smuggling") refers to any item that, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold. It is used for goods that by their nature are considered too dangerous or offensive in the eyes o ...

as a concept enmeshed in the concept of

rule of law The rule of law is the political philosophy that all citizens and institutions within a country, state, or community are accountable to the same laws, including lawmakers and leaders. The rule of law is defined in the ''Encyclopedia Britannic ...

''Illinois v. Caballes''

In '' Illinois v. Caballes'', , the Supreme Court ruled that a minimally intrusive warrantless dog sniff of the car was constitutional at traffic stops. This ruling was based on the premise that the police never entered the car and were instead on public property when they did the search. In Caballes and other previous rulings the court asserted that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy on public property. Thereby this ruling upheld the constitutionality of certain minimally intrusive warrantless searches. ''Illinois v. Caballes'' called into question certain aspects of ''Kyllo v. United States''.

Justice Stevens John Paul Stevens (April 20, 1920 – July 16, 2019) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1975 to 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the second-oldes ...

asserted that the Kyllo search was only unconstitutional due to the fact that it revealed certain aspects of the home besides the presence or absence of contraband. This opened the door to the current minimally intrusive drug sniffs of the home which can only detect the presence or absence of drugs.

''Florida v. Jardines''

Florida v. Jardines ''Florida v. Jardines'', 569 U.S. 1 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court case which resulted in the decision that police use of a trained detection dog to sniff for narcotics on the front porch of a private home is a "search" within the meani ...

'' (2013) was Supreme Court case that decided the legality of deploying

drug-sniffing dog A detection dog or sniffer dog is a dog that is trained to use its senses to detect substances such as explosives, illegal drugs, wildlife scat, currency, blood, and contraband electronics such as illicit mobile phones. The sense most used by ...

s around the perimeter of homes without a search warrant. The Supreme Court held that police use of a trained

detection dog A detection dog or sniffer dog is a dog that is trained to use its senses to detect substances such as explosives, illegal drugs, wildlife scat, currency, blood, and contraband electronics such as illicit mobile phones. The sense most used ...

to sniff for

narcotics The term narcotic (, from ancient Greek ναρκῶ ''narkō'', "to make numb") originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with numbing or paralyzing properties. In the United States, it has since become associated with opiate ...

on the front porch of a private home is a "search" within the meaning of the

, and therefore requires both

probable cause In United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which police authorities have reason to obtain a warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal or the issuing of a search warrant. There is no universally accepted definition o ...

and a

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