The following excerpt is from United States v. Weaver, 18-1697-cr (2nd Cir. 2021):
This brings me to the second problem with the majority's rationale. "[T]he ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness." Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). The majority is correct that a search occurs when an officer "obtains information by physically intruding on a constitutionally protected area," or intrudes into a person's expectation of privacy that "society is prepared to recognize as reasonable." Carpenter v. United States, 138 S.Ct. 2206, 2213, 201 L.Ed.2d 507 (2018) (internal quotation marks omitted). But search doctrine does not foreclose consideration of whether a reasonable person would have believed that he or she was being searched -indeed, focusing on reasonableness is consistent with the Fourth Amendment's text and its purpose. Whether a reasonable person would consider an officer's action as the start of a search is a similar inquiry to whether an officer's action intruded into a person's reasonable expectation of privacy.
The above passage should not be considered legal advice. Reliable answers to complex legal questions require comprehensive research memos. To learn more visit www.alexi.com.