My scholarship focuses upon Fourth Amendment search and seizure law. I am particularly interested in civil search jurisprudence and the implications that modern developments have on it, including the rise of the regulatory state and the increasing interest in preventative searches, such as for national security purposes. Given that the longstanding Reasonableness Clause-versus-Warrant Clause debate has implications for civil search jurisprudence, my most recent projects have focused upon historical/originalist analyses of probable cause.
Articles
The Death of Suspicion, William & Mary Law Review (2010)
This article argues that neither the presumptive warrant requirement nor the presumptive suspicion requirement are...
The Framers’ Search Power: The Misunderstood Statutory History of Suspicion & Probable Cause, Boston College Law Review (2009)
Originalist analyses of the Framers’ views about governmental search power have devoted insufficient attention to...
A Response to Professor Steinberg’s Fourth Amendment Chutzpah, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law (2008)
Professor David Steinberg believes that the Fourth Amendment was intended only to provide some protection...
In The Trenches: Searches & The Misunderstood Common Law History Of Suspicion & Probable Cause, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law (2007)
A detailed analysis of the common law during the Framers’ era, and of how it...
Special Needs & Special Deference: Suspicionless Civil Searches In The Modern Regulatory State, Administrative Law Review (2004)
This Article examines the Supreme Court’s application of the "special needs" principle, which is part...