{"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":"2026-07-02T13:54:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T17:54:31","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<div class=\"wp-block-pdfemb-pdf-embedder-viewer\"><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><\/div>\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 that is oblivious to people of color\u2019s lived experiences with policing in America. This Article complicates this critique by asking whether it is solely the [&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,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17097","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_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":34,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24672,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17097\/revisions\/24672"}],"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}]}}