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"I feel myself distressed because the necessity of securing our personal rights seems not to have pervaded the minds of men; for many other valuable things are omitted:-for instance, general warrants, by which an officer may search suspected places, without evidence of the commission of a fact, or seize any person without evidence of his crime, ought to be prohibited."1
- Former Virginia Governor and delegate to the Constitutional Convention, Patrick Henry
From the time of the ratification of the Constitution, the issue of unreasonable searches and seizures of property has been an important issue. With Britain's use of general warrants being a contributing factor to the Revolutionary War, the Founding Fathers created the Fourth Amendment to ensure that all searches and seizers be either reasonable or approved through a warrant by a judge.2 While the Fourth Amendment creates protections against unreasonable warrantless searches and seizures, the issue then becomes what constitutes an "unreasonable" search and seizure? Nearly 200 years of case law and common law have allowed justices to determine which searches are reasonable and which are not. Looking at common law and established standards of what is deemed reasonable, inventory searches should be considered to be unreasonable and a violation of the Fourth Amendment. This essay aims to analyze South Dakota v. Opperman 428 U.S. 364 (1976), and the reasonableness of inventory searches. More specifically, the reasonableness of inventory searches are drawn into question when looking at the Inherent Mobility Standard, the Rational Basis Test, the Application of Community Caretaking Functions, and the original understanding of the Fourth Amendment.
Analysis of the South Dakota v. Opperman Case
The Fourth Amendment states, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."3 Simply put, the Fourth Amendment does not outlaw all searches and seizures without a warrant, but only those searches and seizures that are deemed to be unreasonable by law. The United States Supreme Court (S.C.) has often held that a warrantless search is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment...