{"id":17097,"date":"2024-01-20T14:47:24","date_gmt":"2024-01-20T19:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/?page_id=17097"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:12:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:12:54","slug":"whitewashing-the-fourth-amendment","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/in-print\/volume-111\/volume-111-issue-5-may-2023\/whitewashing-the-fourth-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Whitewashing the Fourth Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p2\"><em><span id=\"page2159R_mcid3\" class=\"markedContent\"><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">A conventional critical race critique of the Supreme Court and its <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is that it erases race. Scholars argue <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">that by erasing race, the Court has crafted doctrine that is oblivious to <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">people of color\u2019s lived experiences with policing in America. <\/span><\/span><span id=\"page2159R_mcid17\" class=\"markedContent\"><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">This Article complicates this critique by asking whether it is solely the <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Court that is doing the erasing. It explores how race was<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">\u2014<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">or more<\/span><\/span><span id=\"undefined\" class=\"markedContent\"><span id=\"page2159R_mcid20\" class=\"markedContent\"> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">accu<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">rately,<\/span><\/span><\/span><span id=\"page2159R_mcid21\" class=\"markedContent\"> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">was not<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">\u2014<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">litigated in seminal Fourth Amendment cases scholars <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">have targeted for attack:<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Florida v. Bostick<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">,<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Illinois v. Wardlow<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">, and <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">United States v. Drayton<\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">. As the Article shows, race was not raised, let <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">alone litigated, in these important Fourth Amendment cases, even though <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">the defendants in all three cases were Black. <\/span><\/span><span id=\"page2159R_mcid5\" class=\"markedContent\"><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">This Article therefore rounds out the racial critiques of the Court and <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">its<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Fourth Amendment<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">jurisprudence.<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Rather<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">than<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">solely<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">blame<\/span> <span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">the <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">Supreme Court, maybe we should hold attorneys partially responsible for <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">the erasure of race. Perhaps by not raising race, the profession has given <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">the Court license to ignore race in its Fourth Amendment case law. <\/span><\/span><span id=\"page2159R_mcid6\" class=\"markedContent\"><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">This Article underscores the need to reevaluate how we as a profession <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">choose to address or ignore race. It proves that the profession more <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">broadly is complicit in the whitewashing of the Fourth Amendment. And <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">importantly, the insights of this Article extend beyond criminal law and <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">even beyond race. There is much work to be done to better understand <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">how lawyers contribute to marginalization under law.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Continue Reading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2023\/07\/GT-GGLJ230023.pdf\"><em>Whitewashing the Fourth Amendment.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2023\/07\/GT-GGLJ230023.pdf\" class=\"pdfemb-viewer\" style=\"\" data-width=\"max\" data-height=\"max\" data-toolbar=\"bottom\" data-toolbar-fixed=\"off\">GT-GGLJ230023<\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A conventional critical race critique of the Supreme Court and its Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is that it erases race. Scholars argue that by erasing race, the Court has crafted doctrine [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10024,"featured_media":0,"parent":17094,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-17097","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17097"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23246,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17097\/revisions\/23246"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}