Supreme Court

Damon Root | 12.25.2025 7:00 AM

The right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure had an up-and-down sort of year at the U.S. Supreme Court. Back in May, the Court delivered a 9–0 decision that left civil libertarians cheering for its expansion of constitutional safeguards. But in September, a 6–3 Court left civil libertarians seething over the constitutional wrongs the majority was willing to countenance. Let's review what turned out to be an erratic year in Fourth Amendment law.

First, the good news. In May's Barnes v. Felix, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a legal standard governing the use of force by law enforcement that, as Justice Elena Kagan's majority opinion put it, told courts to look "only to the circumstances existing at the precise time an officer perceived the threat inducing him to shoot."

That approach "improperly narrow[ed] the requisite Fourth Amendment analysis," Kagan held. "To assess whether an officer acted reasonably in using force,........

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