4th Amendment Cartoon Analysis

Although the 4th amendment has been ratified with the Bill of Rights, it still seems to be constantly evolving with current opinions of the Supreme Court. Even in recent years, it appears that there are more loopholes developing through court case precedents which allows law enforcement to seemingly disregard the 4th amendment almost completely. In this cartoon it can be seen that law enforcement is able to disregard a citizens privacy rights with the permission of the Supreme Court. The cartoon illustrates two officers blatantly and knowingly disregarding procedure that they know they should be performing because they have been granted the authority to bend the rules by the Supreme Court. The cartoon is dealing with the rights of privacy …show more content…
One officer seems to be torn on what to do. One hand is up as though he is telling his partner to stop to obey a certain protocol while his other hand is holding is pistol. Craig M. Bradley in the Indiana Law Journal touches on several confusing situations that arise especially at the home of the accused. The majority of what he writes has mainly to do with “Knock and Talk”, which allows officers to knock on a door and use the plain view clause to try to gain enough evidence to escalate their level of intrusion. In addition to this, according to the case United States v. Santana, police do not need to knock and announce, nor have a warrant if they are in hot pursuit with probable cause (Bradley 1117). In relation to the cartoon this shows that there is clear and present conflict with the 4th amendment as it stands and that every case may be …show more content…
He is sarcastically accepting the other officer’s question while carrying in his hand the reason for his dignified response to his partners warning. Supreme court rulings seem to be stepping all over the rights granted by the 4th amendment just as how the second officers foot is already on the door in the cartoon ready to kick it down. Going beyond the scope of just “knock and talk”, which already gives officers questionable access to sights, sounds, and scents of a suspects home; the Supreme Court is now ruling certain scenarios and situation which allow for officers to enter a home without a warrant as well as removing any opposition to this. Bradly continues to discuss the hypocrisy of “knock and talk” being a violation of privacy in the first place by creating a scenario where an officer has no suspicion of an individual at all and may be able to gain enough evidence for a legal consent of a search, although the right to knock and inquire in the first place may already be a violation of privacy in the first place (Bradley 1124-5). This resonates between the two officers depicted in the cartoon as one of them suggests an already questionable exercise while the other one practices no such discretion in any