This training program will aid those working to defend persons accused of homicide in drug-related overdose deaths. Each section of the program focuses on a different aspect of these cases. CLE is not available for this program.

NACDL seeks to ensure that the Fourth Amendment remains a vibrant protection against encroachments on the privacy of the individual through litigation and public advocacy. The Fourth Amendment is the appropriate starting point for assessing the limits on government intrusion into one's privacy, and its protections must continue to thrive in the digital age.

to Conduct a Forensic Search of a Digital Device at the Border

The rise of electronic devices like laptops and smartphones brought new questions to the border search doctrine. Are electronic devices like vehicles, which require no reasonable suspicion to warrantlessly search at the border? Or are digital devices more like invasive searches of a person? Does the type of search – manual or forensic – require different levels of suspicion to execute?

Law enforcement has started to use genetic genealogy websites to try to identify suspects in cold cases. How does genetic genealogy work? What should defense attorneys look for if forensic genetic genealogy is used in their cases?

Why the Federal Bureau of Prisons Must Stop Monitoring Confidential Legal Emails

This report by NACDL and the Samuelson Clinic makes the case for Congress to act immediately to protect the attorney-client privilege in emails sent between attorneys' offices and people in BOP custody. It also calls for the BOP to stop its practice of requiring incarcerated clients to “voluntarily” agree that their email will be monitored and that attorney-client privilege will not apply to legal emails, just as the government is required to in other contexts. [Released December 2020]

Coalition letter to members of Congress from NACDL and other concerned organizations regarding the need to ensure privileged communication between attorneys and clients in BOP custody, as addressed in the Effective Assistance of Counsel in the Digital Era Act (H.R. 546, 2021).

Brief Of The Rutherford Institute And National Association Of Criminal Defense Lawyers As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner.

Argument: If the Fourth Amendment does not apply here, then Ms. Torres will have no remedy at all. The Tenth Circuit’s ruling means that objectively un-reasonable police action that seriously injured the target of that action is not subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny simply because the officer’s attempt to detain the target is initially unsuccessful. This approach is incorrect, not least because it would deprive plaintiffs like Ms. Torres of any remedy for serious injuries suffered at the hands of police officers. The decision below contradicts this Court’s jurisprudence. Furthermore, the Tenth Circuit’s approach is inconsistent with the way this Court has reviewed excessive-force cases in the past. Graham specifically held that “all claims that law enforcement officials have used excessive force—deadly or not—in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other ‘seizure’ of a free citizen should be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment and its ‘reasonableness’ standard.” The Tenth Circuit’s ruling expands the unjustifiably significant disparity that already exists between liability for civilians and for police officers. This Court should recalibrate the balance in our society’s laws—more respect for individual liberty, and less accommodation of police excessive force. 

Brief Amicus Curiae of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and Criminal Procedure Professors in Support of Petitioner.

Argument: In Sutterfield v. City of Milwaukee, 751 F.3d 542, 553 (7th Cir. 2014), the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit observed that the distinctions among the exigent circumstances doctrine, the emergency aid doctrine, and the community caretaking doctrine “are not always clear.” In turn, these fuzzy distinctions have led to a “lack of clarity in judicial articulation and application of the three doctrines.” This lack of clarity means that courts deciding whether the community caretaking doctrine should apply to warrantless home entries often think that doctrine is needed to justify entries that are already covered by the exigent circumstances doctrine and/or the emergency aid doctrine. As set forth in this amici brief, this Court’s opinions defining and applying the exigent circumstances and emergency aid doctrines establish that police officers would need to rely on the community caretaking doctrine as an independent justification for warrantless home entries in only two potential situations: to address (1) non-bodily harms such as nuisances; and (2) non-imminent threats of bodily harm. Framed in that fashion, it is clear that a separate and independent rationale such as “community caretaking” – which was generated by the special circumstances attendant to automobile searches – does not justify invasion of the sanctity of the home. Indeed, the way that this Court distinguished its opinion in Coolidge in creating the community caretaking doctrine makes clear that the doctrine does not and should not apply to warrantless home entries. In addition, the capacity for a “community caretaking” exception that permits warrantless searches of the home would invite its use as an end run around the protections of the warrant requirement.

Brief Of Amici Curiae Electronic Frontier Foundation, Brennan Center For Justice, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Freedomworks Foundation, National Association Of Criminal Defense Lawyers, And Rutherford Institute In Support Of Plaintiffs-Appellants’ Petition For Rehearing En Banc.

Argument: Rehearing en banc is necessary because the panel’s opinion contradicts two controlling Fourth Amendment principles. First, surveillance technologies that collect detailed records about people’s movements, like Baltimore’s Aerial Investigative Research (AIR) program, infringe on individuals’ reasonable expectations of privacy. Second, the “special needs” exception to the warrant requirement does not apply where, as here, a police surveillance program serves only as a law enforcement investigatory tool. Rehearing is also warranted by the important technological and social aspects of this case. Baltimore’s AIR program comprehensively tracks the movements of a half-million people as they travel throughout the city, and it is integrated into the city’s vast surveillance camera and automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks. Other vendors are following AIR’s maker, Persistent Surveillance Systems (PSS), into this new market for advanced police aerial surveillance technologies.  These police “eyes in the sky” chill free speech and assembly in public places, raising serious First Amendment concerns. This case also exemplifies the disparate burden of government surveillance borne by communities of color—a problem described as “the color of surveillance.” Police experiment with, and eventually deploy, intrusive technologies like the AIR program in cities with large communities of color. Before Baltimore, PSS operated surveillance flights above Compton, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Dayton, Ohio. The company also seeks to conduct surveillance of St. Louis, Missouri. Further, authorities have routinely deployed aerial surveillance technologies against individuals participating in racial justice movements, like those protesting against the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Michael Brown in Ferguson, and Freddie Gray in Baltimore. The combination of these racial disparities and the novel surveillance technique at issue here thus justifies rehearing this case en banc. And the legal errors in the panel’s opinion require it.

Brief of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and California Attorneys for Criminal Justice as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioner (On Merits).

Argument: A rule categorically permitting warrantless entry into a private residence in pursuit of a fleeing misdemeanant would be dangerously overbroad and conflict with long-standing Fourth Amendment jurisprudence requiring case-by-case analysis of whether exigent circumstances justify the entry. An extensive survey of cases involving such entries reveals that many spiral out of control, often resulting in property damage and personal injury to officers, suspects, and innocent third parties. Further, law enforcement interests typically justifying warrantless entries—preventing evidence destruction or protecting the safety of officers and the public—are not implicated in many misdemeanant pursuits. A case-by-case approach would permit warrantless entry when a particular misdemeanant poses a serious threat to people or evidence while encouraging officers to briefly pause and seek a warrant in the many cases where neither the suspected crime nor the circumstances of the pursuit justify putting lives or property at risk.

Federal laws protecting individual privacy rights in electronic communications have not been meaningfully updated in over 25 years, even though many of today’s technologies were not even conceived of when Congress considered the legislation and when the Supreme Court created the “Third Party Doctrine.” This white paper discusses the current status of the law and concludes with recommendations for reform. [Released February 2012]

Over the past several years, the government has increasingly turned to hacking and malware as an investigative technique. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun deploying software designed to infiltrate and control, disable, or surveil a computer's use and activity. The ACLU created a guide, to which NACDL and EFF contributed, that sets out key legal arguments and strategies for challenging evidence seized by government-installed computer malware. [Released March 2017]

In response to a series of high-profile police killings of unarmed people of color, law enforcement agencies across the country began adopting body cameras as a solution to requests for more transparency and accountability. In order to study the impact of body cameras on the rights of the accused, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers established a Body Camera Task Force comprised of defense attorneys from across the country. [Released March 2017]

NACDL strives to guarantee that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment is excluded in a court of law, and we know that you want to do the same for your clients.

This page contains materials and information related to the Fourth Amendment, including some surveillance and digital forensics resources.