Module 18: The Fourth Amendment

How We Got Here: General Warrants, Writs of Assistance and a House That Was a Castle

The Fourth Amendment is 54 words long. Most of its modern fame comes from cell phones, GPS trackers and cameras that read license plates, but its subject is old: when may a government agent walk into your house, open your desk, or take your papers?¹

English law had a slogan for the answer. "Every man's house is his castle" was a celebrated maxim, and the Constitution Annotated traces it to Semayne's Case (reported in 1604), a civil dispute over executing process that recognized both the homeowner's right to defend his house against unlawful entry and the officer's authority to enter on notice to carry out the King's process. In Parliament in 1763 William Pitt put the same idea in words that schoolchildren once memorized: "The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the crown."²

The fight over what a warrant could say came in the 1760s. John Wilkes had published pamphlets attacking the government and the King himself, and officers armed with general warrants raided many homes in search of the material behind them. In Wilkes's own house, according to the pleadings, messengers broke open his locks and seized his papers. In Wilkes v. Wood (1763) the court called such a warrant "a discretionary power given to messengers to search where their suspicions may chance to fall." In Entick v. Carrington (1765) the court held a similar warrant "contrary to the genius of the law of England," and added that "our law holds the property of every man so sacred, that no man can set his foot upon his neighbour's close without his leave."² The Supreme Court later called Lord Camden's judgment in Entick one of the "landmarks of English liberty," and said it guided what the framers meant.³

In the colonies the lesson came from customs enforcement. To catch smugglers, English officials used writs of assistance, general warrants that let the bearer enter any house or other place to search for "prohibited and uncustomed" goods and ordered all subjects to help. A writ stayed in force for the life of the sovereign and six months after. When George II died in 1760, new writs were needed, and in 1761 James Otis attacked their legality. Otis lost, but the Constitution Annotated reports that his arguments were widely cited in the colonies, and the Supreme Court in Boyd repeated his description of the writs as "the worst instrument of arbitrary power."²³

The state declarations

The first American constitutions wrote the complaint into law. Virginia's 1776 declaration said that "general warrants, whereby any officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted."⁴ Maryland's declaration of the same year called such warrants "illegal."⁵ Massachusetts in 1780 went further and stated the right affirmatively: "Every subject has a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches, and seizures of his person, his houses, his papers, and all his possessions."⁶ The federal clause borrows that last structure.

Congress, 1789

James Madison's June 8, 1789 draft read: "The rights to be secured in their persons, their houses, their papers, and their other property, from all unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated by warrants issued without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, or not particularly describing the places to be searched, or the persons or things to be seized." On August 17 the House considered the committee's version. Mr. Gerry said he presumed there was a mistake in the wording and moved to say "secure" and to add "against unreasonable seizures and searches." Mr. Benson objected to the words "by warrants issuing," thought the provision good as far as it went but not enough, and moved to change it to "and no warrant shall issue." The House voted on Benson's motion and it "lost by a considerable majority."⁷

Yet the ratified text has the words "and no Warrants shall issue." The Constitution Annotated notes that the rejected language ended up in the final provision, and reports one theory, from Nelson Lasson's 1937 history, that the chairman of the committee that arranged the amendments simply inserted his own wording and that it passed unnoticed. This lesson did not trace the clause through the Senate or the House-Senate conference, and it cannot confirm how the change entered the text.²

The Text

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

U.S. Const. amend. IV, as transcribed by the National Archives

Congress sent it to the states as "Article the sixth" of twelve. The ten that were ratified by December 15, 1791 became the Bill of Rights.¹

One clause or two

The sentence has two parts joined by "and." The first states a right against "unreasonable searches and seizures." The second says what a warrant needs: probable cause, an oath or affirmation, and particular description. The Constitution Annotated frames the old question this way: does a search count as "reasonable" only if it satisfies the warrant clause, or are the two parts independent, so that some warrantless searches can still be reasonable? The first reading produces a strong preference for warrants with a list of exceptions. The second asks for a case-by-case judgment about reasonableness. Modern doctrine mixes them: the Court treats a warrantless search of a home as presumptively unreasonable and recognizes exceptions when circumstances make getting a warrant unreasonable.²⁸

"The people" and "their persons, houses, papers, and effects"

Four categories are named. Persons covers bodies, including blood draws, which McNeely treated as a compelled intrusion beneath the skin, and, in Torres v. Madrid, the application of physical force to a person.⁹¹⁰ Houses sits at the center of the doctrine. Papers and effects covered the diaries, letters and goods of the founding era, and courts now ask how that list applies to emails, phones and cloud accounts.

"Unreasonable"

The word is not defined. Originalists look to eighteenth-century common law, including Entick and the rules about warrants. Living-constitution readers stress the purpose, which the Court has described as protecting "the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials."¹¹ Textualists ask what "search" and "seizure" meant to a reader when the Amendment was adopted, and in Kyllo Justice Scalia cited an 1828 dictionary for the meaning of "search," which began "to look over or through for the purpose of finding something."¹² All three approaches show up in the case law below, sometimes within a single opinion.

What Counts as a Search or a Seizure

The Amendment applies only when the government conducts a "search" or a "seizure." Many of the biggest cases are fights about that threshold, because if no search occurred, the warrant clause never comes into play.

Property: the old test, revived

Through the first part of the twentieth century the Court tied "search" to physical intrusion. In Olmstead v. United States (1928) federal agents tapped telephone lines without entering anyone's house, and Chief Justice Taft wrote that "there was no entry of the houses or offices of the defendants" and no search. Justice Brandeis dissented. The founders, he wrote, "conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone."¹³

Katz: privacy

The Court changed course in Katz v. United States (1967). FBI agents had attached an electronic listening and recording device to the outside of a public telephone booth from which Katz transmitted wagering information. The government argued that no physical entry into the booth occurred. Justice Stewart answered: "the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places." Justice Harlan's concurrence supplied the test lower courts adopted, a "twofold requirement, first that a person have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, that the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as 'reasonable.'" Justice Black dissented, saying that eavesdropping by electronic means does not fit the words "search" or "seizure."¹⁴

Jones and Jardines: the property test returns beside Katz

For decades Harlan's test dominated. In United States v. Jones (2012) agents attached a GPS device to a vehicle and tracked it for 28 days. Justice Scalia, for five Justices, held that this was a search because "the Government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information," which would have been a search when the Amendment was adopted. Justice Alito, for four Justices, concurred in the judgment and would have asked whether long-term monitoring violated reasonable expectations of privacy. Justice Sotomayor joined the majority, agreeing that a search occurs "at a minimum" where the government obtains information by physically intruding on a constitutionally protected area, and wrote separately.¹⁵

Florida v. Jardines (2013) applied the same reasoning to a front porch. Police brought a trained dog to the door of a house to sniff for drugs. By a vote of five to four the Court held that using the dog to investigate the home and its curtilage was a search, and that it was unnecessary to decide whether the officers also violated the owner's expectation of privacy under Katz.¹⁶ Today either route can establish a search: the government physically intrudes on a protected area to gather information, or it invades an expectation of privacy that society accepts as reasonable.

Kyllo: technology and the home

In Kyllo v. United States (2001), agents used a thermal imager from the street at 3:20 a.m. on January 16, 1992 to see whether a triplex gave off the heat that grow lamps produce. The Court held, five to four, that "obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the interior of the home that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical 'intrusion into a constitutionally protected area'" is a search, at least where the technology is not in general public use. The opinion rests on a line from an earlier case: "At the very core" of the Amendment "stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion."¹²

What is not a search

The Court has held that some observations are not searches. California v. Greenwood (1988) held that the Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside the curtilage of a home.¹⁷ California v. Ciraolo (1986) held that a naked-eye aerial observation of a fenced backyard was not a search, and Florida v. Riley (1989) reached the same result for a helicopter at 400 feet in a plurality opinion.¹⁸ Oliver v. United States (1984) held that the open fields doctrine applies to the fields at issue, including one the owner had posted with "No Trespassing" signs.¹⁹ In each, the police saw or collected what a member of the public could see or collect.

Seizures of people

A seizure of a person occurs when an officer restrains liberty by physical force or a show of authority. In Torres v. Madrid (2021) the Court held that "the application of physical force to the body of a person with intent to restrain is a seizure even if the person does not submit and is not subdued."¹⁰

Stops, Frisks, Traffic Stops and Force

Probable cause is the standard for arrests and for warrants. Short, limited encounters are judged by a lower standard.

Terry stops

In Terry v. Ohio (1968), decided June 10, 1968, the Court allowed an officer to stop a person and pat down the outer clothing for weapons, but required more than a hunch: "the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion."²⁰ Courts call the resulting standard reasonable suspicion.⁸

Traffic stops

A traffic stop is a seizure of the driver. Whren v. United States (1996) held, unanimously, that where police have probable cause to believe a traffic violation occurred, "subjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis," so a stop is not invalid because the officer also hoped to investigate something else.²¹ Rodriguez v. United States (2015) put a limit on duration: authority for the seizure "ends when tasks tied to the traffic infraction" are, or reasonably should have been, completed, so a dog sniff cannot be allowed to lengthen the stop without reasonable suspicion.²²

Excessive force

Force used in a stop or arrest is a seizure and must be objectively reasonable. In Barnes v. Felix (May 15, 2025) an officer pulled over a driver, ordered him out, and when the car began to move forward jumped onto its doorsill and fired two shots, and the Fifth Circuit had applied a "moment-of-threat" rule that looked only at the seconds before the shooting. A unanimous Court rejected that rule, holding that the "totality of the circumstances" inquiry "has no time limit," and that earlier events may bear on how a reasonable officer would have understood later ones. It remanded the case.²³

Warrants and Probable Cause

A warrant is a written order signed by a magistrate, directed to an officer, to search for and seize described items. The Fourth Amendment sets four conditions for one: probable cause, an oath or affirmation, particular description of the place, and particular description of the persons or things to be seized.

Probable cause after Gates

In Illinois v. Gates (1983) police got a warrant partly on an anonymous letter that predicted a couple's drug trip. The Court abandoned the rigid two-pronged test for informants' tips and returned to the "totality of the circumstances." The magistrate's task is "simply to make a practical, common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set forth in the affidavit before him," including the veracity and basis of knowledge of anyone supplying hearsay, "there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place." A reviewing court asks only whether the magistrate had a "substantial basis" for finding probable cause.²⁴

False statements and bad warrants

A warrant is only as good as the affidavit behind it. Franks v. Delaware (1978) allows a defendant who makes a "substantial preliminary showing" that the affiant knowingly, intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth included a false statement necessary to probable cause to get a hearing on the issue.²⁵ Groh v. Ramirez (2004) held a warrant plainly invalid where it did not describe the things to be seized, even though the application did.²⁶

Neutral and detached

The warrant requirement assumes a magistrate who is not part of the investigation. The Court has written that when officers search for evidence of a crime, they must generally seek a warrant from "a neutral and detached magistrate."¹¹ In Idaho the same ideas appear in the constitution and in chapter 44 of title 19 of the Idaho Code, discussed below.

Premises of third parties and the press

In Zurcher v. Stanford Daily (1978), decided May 31, 1978, the Court held that the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments do not prevent a State from issuing a warrant to search for evidence simply because the owner or possessor of the place is not reasonably suspected of criminal involvement. The place in that case was a student newspaper's office. Congress answered with the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, 42 U.S.C. § 2000aa, which restricts searches for certain work product and documentary materials held by people who publish.²⁷²⁸

Administrative searches

Inspections by health and building officials are searches too. Camara v. Municipal Court (1967) held that an area inspection needs a warrant, and that probable cause to issue one exists "if reasonable legislative or administrative standards for conducting an area inspection are satisfied with respect to a particular dwelling."²⁹

Warrantless Searches: The Exceptions

The Court says that "searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable," and that the warrant requirement "is subject to certain exceptions."⁸ The main ones are below.

Search incident to arrest and the home

In Chimel v. California (1969), decided June 23, 1969, the Court limited a search incident to arrest to "the arrestee's person and the area 'within his immediate control,'" meaning the area from which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence, and rejected routine searches of other rooms.³⁰ Payton v. New York (1980) held that police may not make a warrantless, nonconsensual entry into a home to make a routine felony arrest, because "the physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed."³¹

Exigent circumstances

Emergencies can excuse a warrant. Kentucky v. King (2011) held that the rule applies when the police do not create the exigency by engaging or threatening to engage in conduct that violates the Fourth Amendment.³² Missouri v. McNeely (2013) held that in drunk-driving investigations the natural dissipation of alcohol in the blood is not an exigency in every case sufficient to justify a blood test without a warrant. Mitchell v. Wisconsin (2019), in a plurality opinion by Justice Alito for four Justices, concluded that when a driver is unconscious and cannot be given a breath test, the exigent-circumstances doctrine generally permits a blood draw without a warrant, with Justice Thomas concurring in the judgment.⁹³³ Lange v. California (2021) held that pursuit of a fleeing misdemeanor suspect does not always, categorically, justify a warrantless entry into a home.³⁴

Emergency aid and community caretaking

Two recent cases mark the line. Caniglia v. Strom (2021), a unanimous decision, held that the "community caretaking" idea from a case about impounded cars does not justify warrantless searches and seizures in the home. Case v. Montana (January 14, 2026), also unanimous, addressed the separate emergency-aid exception. Officers who entered a home after a 911 caller reported that a man was threatening suicide and may have shot himself had to meet the standard of Brigham City v. Stuart, "an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury." The Court declined to add a probable-cause requirement, said Montana's version of the test evoked the lower "reasonable suspicion" standard that Brigham City did not adopt, and affirmed.³⁵⁸

Vehicles and the home's curtilage

In Collins v. Virginia (2018) the Court held that the automobile exception does not permit the warrantless entry of a home or its curtilage in order to search a vehicle there.³⁶

Consent

In Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973) the Court held that when the State relies on consent from someone not in custody, it must show the consent was voluntary, judged by the totality of the circumstances. Knowledge of the right to refuse is a factor, but the State need not prove the person knew it.³⁷

Cell phones: Riley

The largest modern limit on search incident to arrest came in Riley v. California (2014). Two arrestees had phones searched by police without warrants. The Court, unanimous in the judgment, said the justifications for the exception, officer safety and preservation of evidence, do not apply to the digital data on a phone, and that a phone search "implicates substantially greater individual privacy interests than a brief physical search." Chief Justice Roberts noted that phones "are now such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy." His rule: "get a warrant." The Court left room for exigent circumstances in particular cases.³⁸

DNA at booking

In Maryland v. King (2013) the Court held that when officers make an arrest supported by probable cause for a serious offense and bring the suspect to the station, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.³⁹

Digital Privacy: From the Third-Party Doctrine to Carpenter and Chatrie

The old rule

Two 1970s cases said that information you hand to a business is not private. United States v. Miller (1976) held that a bank customer had no Fourth Amendment interest in the bank's records of his accounts that he could assert against subpoenas, because they were business records of the bank, not his private papers. Smith v. Maryland (1979) held that the installation and use of a pen register, a device that records the numbers dialed from a phone, was not a search.⁴⁰⁴¹ Four years later United States v. Knotts (1983) held that monitoring a beeper in a car on public roads was not a search, because "a person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements."⁴² Together these cases are the source of what lawyers call the third-party doctrine.

Carpenter: location records are different

In Carpenter v. United States (June 22, 2018) the government obtained, under the Stored Communications Act and without a warrant, 12,898 location points over 127 days from a suspect's wireless carriers, about 101 per day. Chief Justice Roberts wrote for a five-Justice majority that "individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the whole of their physical movements" and that a person keeps Fourth Amendment protection even when moving through places open to the public. The Court declined to extend Smith and Miller to cell-site records. It called its decision "a narrow one" and left open real-time location data and "tower dumps." Four Justices dissented in four opinions.⁴³

Chatrie: geofence warrants

A geofence warrant works backward from a crime scene. Police ask a technology company for data about every phone that was inside a virtual perimeter at a set time. In Chatrie v. United States, decided June 29, 2026, police investigating a May 2019 credit-union robbery in Midlothian, Virginia got a warrant directed to Google for data on phones within 150 meters of the bank. It had three steps: anonymized data for all phones inside the perimeter, then more data on a narrowed list, then names and phone numbers for a final list. Google identified three users, including Okello Chatrie. The Supreme Court held that police "conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they acquired Chatrie's location data from Google because an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell-phone location information." The Court compared Google's Location History to Carpenter's cell-site records and said it is more precise, recording about every two minutes for a daily average of 720 points against 101, and more the user's own. It rejected both arguments the government made, that a short span of data is not a search and that the third-party doctrine applies, and said a cell-phone user "is not to be viewed as sharing private information with third parties" merely by doing the ordinary things cell-phone users do.¹¹

The Court did not decide whether the warrant was valid. A search must also be reasonable, and the parties disputed each step of the three-step process, so the Court left it to the court of appeals to decide whether the warrant satisfied the requirements of particularity and probable cause at each step. It vacated and remanded. Five Justices joined Justice Kagan's opinion. Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Sotomayor, concurred and would have gone further and found the search violated the Amendment. Justice Gorsuch concurred only in the judgment, saying he "would reach that conclusion by a different route" than the Katz test. Justice Alito, joined in part by Justices Thomas and Barrett, dissented. Justice Barrett wrote separately that she had "no quarrel with" Carpenter but agreed with Justice Alito that Chatrie had no reasonable expectation of privacy in data about his public movements that he voluntarily disclosed to Google.¹¹

A Fifth Circuit panel had already said, in United States v. Smith (August 9, 2024), that geofence warrants are "general warrants categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment," while affirming the conviction on the good-faith exception. The Supreme Court's remand leaves the validity question open, and this lesson did not check what later courts have done with Smith.⁴⁴ A news account of the ruling is also available.

Fair, open questions

Supporters of the Carpenter line argue the Fourth Amendment must keep pace with technology or its protection becomes empty. Critics, including the Chatrie dissenters, argue that extending the Amendment to data held by businesses has no stopping point and that the voluntary choices people make with their phones matter. Both positions are argued from precedent and from the Amendment's text, and the Court has not settled the boundaries of the rule.

License Plate Readers and the Next Questions

An automated license plate reader, or ALPR, is a camera that photographs each plate that passes and records the time and place. Single captures are the kind of public observation the older cases treat as unprotected. A network that keeps the data for weeks or months can reconstruct where a car has been, and that is why the cases are now in court.

Massachusetts

In Commonwealth v. McCarthy (April 16, 2020) the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the state police's use of four cameras at two Cape Cod bridges was not a search, because that snapshot was not detailed enough. The court also wrote that "with enough cameras in enough locations, the historic location data from an ALPR system in Massachusetts would invade a reasonable expectation of privacy and would constitute a search for constitutional purposes."⁴⁵

Norfolk

In Virginia, a federal district court ruled on January 27, 2026 in Schmidt v. City of Norfolk that on the record before it, a system of 176 cameras did not track the whole of a person's movements and so was not a search. Judge Mark Davis wrote that ALPR surveillance "could become too intrusive and run afoul of [constitutional privacy standards] at some point," and that in Norfolk "the answer is: not today."⁴⁶ A UNC School of Government blog post said its author knew of no ruling that Flock use violates the Fourth Amendment, and that the Fourth Circuit had tentatively set argument for the week of December 8 to 11.⁴⁷⁴⁸ This lesson could not open the opinions and relies on those accounts.

Other tools

The same question arises for drones, pole cameras, facial recognition and data brokers. This lesson searched for 2025 and 2026 appellate decisions on each and did not confirm a controlling one. The reasoning in Kyllo, Jones, Carpenter and Chatrie is where any of them will start.

The Exclusionary Rule

The Constitution does not say what happens to evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Court supplied a remedy: with some exceptions, the government may not use it at trial.

From Weeks to Mapp

Weeks v. United States (1914) barred use of unlawfully seized papers in federal court. Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States (1920) extended the idea to derivative evidence: "the essence of a provision forbidding the acquisition of evidence in a certain way is that not merely evidence so acquired shall not be used before the Court but that it shall not be used at all." Wolf v. Colorado (1949) held the core of the Amendment applies to the states through due process, "the security of one's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police," but did not require exclusion in state courts. Mapp v. Ohio (1961) did: "all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by that same authority, inadmissible in a state court." Three Justices dissented, and one Justice would have reversed on other grounds.^49505152

Fruits and limits

Wong Sun v. United States (1963) asked whether evidence had been "come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint."⁵³ Rakas v. Illinois (1978) held that Fourth Amendment rights "are personal rights" that may not be asserted vicariously, so a passenger could not challenge a search of a car he did not own.⁵⁴ Nix v. Williams (1984) recognized that evidence that would inevitably have been discovered by lawful means may come in.⁵⁵ Utah v. Strieff (2016) held that discovery of a valid, pre-existing, untainted arrest warrant attenuated the connection between an unconstitutional stop and the evidence found.⁵⁶

Good faith and the cost-benefit turn

United States v. Leon (1984) held that evidence obtained by officers acting in reasonable reliance on a search warrant later found invalid need not be excluded, because the rule exists to deter police misconduct and "cannot be expected, and should not be applied, to deter objectively reasonable law enforcement activity."⁵⁷ Hudson v. Michigan (2006) held that violation of the knock-and-announce rule does not require suppression, applying the rule only "where its deterrence benefits outweigh its 'substantial social costs.'"⁵⁸ Herring v. United States (2009) held that when police mistakes leading to an unlawful search are the result of isolated negligence rather than systemic error or reckless disregard, the rule does not apply: police conduct "must be sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it."⁵⁹

Defenders of the rule contend it is the only remedy that works, since civil suits against officers are rare and hard to win. Opponents contend it lets guilty defendants go free and punishes the public for an officer's mistake. The Court has moved over time from the first view toward the second, though it has never overruled Mapp.

Myths and Misreadings

• "The police always need a warrant." A warrant is the default for entering a home to search or arrest, and the Court lists many exceptions: exigent circumstances, consent, search incident to arrest, and others. Case v. Montana and Lange show how each exception is limited by its reason.
• "Public places have no privacy." Carpenter said a person does not give up all Fourth Amendment protection by moving through public space, and the whole of a person's movements can be protected even though each step is visible.
• "If police find evidence illegally, the case is thrown out." The remedy is exclusion of that evidence, and the exceptions (good faith, attenuation, inevitable discovery, standing) mean much of it comes in anyway. Prosecutors can proceed on other evidence.
• "Police can search any phone after an arrest." Riley held that they need a warrant, with exigent circumstances left open in particular cases.
• "A pretextual stop is illegal." Whren held that with probable cause of a traffic violation, the officer's motives are irrelevant to the Fourth Amendment, though a stop cannot be prolonged for other investigation, as Rodriguez held.
• "The Fourth Amendment applies to private companies." The Amendment restrains government action. Whether a private party's search counts as government action is a separate question this lesson did not research.

Short Q&A

Do I have to say yes if an officer asks to search my home? No. Consent must be voluntary, and the officer asking is relying on it. Schneckloth says knowing you can refuse is a factor in voluntariness but the State need not prove you knew.

Can police look through my garbage? Under Greenwood, trash left for collection outside the curtilage is not protected by the federal Constitution. Idaho's Supreme Court, in Pulizzi (2024), reached the same result under art. I, sec. 17.

Can police fly a drone over my backyard? Federal cases on manned flights, Ciraolo and Riley, allow naked-eye observation from public airspace. Idaho added a statute, Idaho Code § 21-213, that limits drone surveillance of targeted people and property without written consent, with exceptions listed in the statute.

What does "probable cause" mean? Gates defined it for warrants as a "fair probability" that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place, judged on all the circumstances. It is less than proof beyond a reasonable doubt and more than a hunch.

Landmark Cases

Each case was checked against the opinion text where this lesson could open it. Rows for state-court cases are checked against secondary sources, as the footnotes say.

The Idaho Connection

Idaho's constitution has its own search clause. Article I, section 17 reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated; and no warrant shall issue without probable cause shown by affidavit, particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized." One difference from the federal text is visible on the page: the Idaho clause says "shown by affidavit" where the federal text says "supported by Oath or affirmation." This lesson verified the text on the Idaho Legislature's website.⁶⁰

State constitution, separate rules

The Idaho Supreme Court has said that state courts "are at liberty to find within the provisions of their constitutions greater protection than is afforded under the federal constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court." In State v. Pulizzi (November 29, 2024), detectives made seven warrantless trash pulls over about five months from a bin on the sidewalk outside the curtilage of an apartment, found drug paraphernalia, and used it to get a warrant. The defendant argued that a city waste ordinance created an expectation of privacy under art. I, sec. 17. The court affirmed, following Greenwood and its own earlier decisions in Donato and McCall that held the state clause did not give greater protection for trash.⁶¹

The same opinion summarizes where Idaho does depart from the federal rules, and this lesson relies on its description:

• Curtilage. State v. Webb, 130 Idaho 462, 943 P.2d 52 (1997), held art. I, sec. 17 gives broader protection for curtilage than the Fourth Amendment.
• No good-faith exception. State v. Guzman, 122 Idaho 981, 842 P.2d 660 (1992), rejected the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule under art. I, sec. 17, and State v. Koivu, 152 Idaho 511, 272 P.3d 483 (2012), reaffirmed Idaho's separate exclusionary rule.
• Pen registers. State v. Thompson, 114 Idaho 746, 760 P.2d 1162 (1988), held that installing a pen register is a warrantless search under the state clause, the opposite of Smith v. Maryland.

That is a real difference for the exclusionary rule: in Idaho, the Leon good-faith rule has not been adopted under the state constitution.⁶¹ This lesson did not open the earlier opinions and did not check whether the Idaho Supreme Court has revisited Guzman or Koivu since 2012.

Idaho statutes

• Search warrants. Title 19, chapter 44 of the Idaho Code defines a search warrant as a written order signed by a magistrate, judge or justice. Section 19-4403 says a warrant "cannot be issued but upon probable cause, supported by affidavit, naming or describing the person, and particularly describing the property and the place to be searched." Section 19-4404 allows an oral or telephonic affidavit under oath that is recorded and transcribed. Section 19-4411 requires the warrant to direct service in the day time unless the affidavits are positive that the property is in the place to be searched. Section 19-4412 makes a warrant void if not executed and returned within 14 days.⁶²
• Drones. Idaho Code § 21-213 bars any person, entity or state agency from using an unmanned aircraft system to intentionally conduct surveillance of or collect information about specifically targeted persons or private property, including a dwelling and its curtilage, without written consent. Law enforcement may use drones for traffic accident documentation, disaster assessment, search and rescue, emergencies with imminent threats, and after a warrant where one is required. A person subject to prohibited conduct has a civil cause of action for the greater of $1,000 or actual damages, plus attorney's fees.⁶³
• License plate readers. Idaho Code § 49-1432, added in 2025, lets an agency use an ALPR for law enforcement or traffic flow analysis, but only for investigating felonies, misdemeanors or traffic accidents, or to search for missing or endangered persons, and not to enforce traffic infractions other than those tied to an accident. Access is limited to authorized personnel. Queries must be logged with user identity, date, time and purpose, and agencies must conduct semiannual audits. Misuse can bring discipline, penalties and criminal prosecution. The section as posted does not set a retention period.⁶⁴ Senate Bill 1180 passed the Senate 25 to 10 on March 27, 2025 and the House 45 to 24 on April 3, and the governor signed it April 4, effective July 1, 2025.⁶⁵
• Public records. Idaho Code § 74-124 exempts law enforcement investigatory records from disclosure only to the extent that disclosure would cause one of the harms the statute lists, including interference with enforcement proceedings or an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.⁶⁶

This lesson did not find an Idaho appellate decision on geofence warrants or license plate readers.

Where This Shows Up for Officials, Reporters and Citizens

The police chief with a camera proposal

Chief Maria Delgado of an invented Idaho town wants to buy a network of license plate cameras. Idaho Code § 49-1432 already fixes the permitted purposes, access limits, logging and audits, and the town cannot loosen them. What the section as posted leaves open is retention. A written policy that sets a retention period, names who may query and records the case number for each query is a decision the council can make in public, and it speaks to the question courts like McCarthy and Schmidt turn on: how much movement can be reconstructed.⁶⁴⁴⁵

The county commissioner reviewing a vendor contract

A county commissioner is asked to sign a contract with a camera vendor. The questions to put to the sheriff in an open meeting are where the data is stored, who outside the agency can search it, and whether the contract matches § 49-1432(3), which limits access to the agency's authorized personnel. The commissioner is not deciding a Fourth Amendment question. The commissioner is deciding whether the written terms keep the system on the lawful side of the statute.⁶⁴

The detective drafting a warrant affidavit

A detective writing an affidavit for a phone or location warrant should expect the three requirements courts check after Gates and Groh: facts that make a fair probability, a particular description of the place and items, and nothing in the affidavit the affiant knows to be false. After Chatrie the warrant for location data should explain each step and why it is limited to the people and times the probable cause covers. Idaho's rejection of the good-faith exception means a defective warrant can cost the evidence in a state prosecution.^24261161

The reporter filing a records request

A reporter who wants to know how a local agency uses license plate data can ask for the agency's policy, the audit logs section 49-1432(8) requires twice a year, and the training records § 49-1432(6) requires. The agency may withhold investigatory records only to the extent § 74-124 allows, and the statute provides a petition to the district court if records are improperly withheld.⁶⁴⁶⁶

The resident asked for consent

A resident asked at the door whether an officer may come in has a decision to make. Schneckloth says the consent has to be voluntary, and a "no" is a lawful answer. Saying "yes" waives the warrant requirement for that entry, and the resident can limit its scope or revoke it.³⁷

The student reading the news

When a story reports "a judge ruled the search was legal," the questions to ask are whether the ruling was that no search occurred or that a search occurred and was reasonable, and whether a state constitution or only the Fourth Amendment was applied. Chatrie is a model: the Court held a search occurred and left reasonableness to the lower court.¹¹

Related Modules

• Module 17, The Third Amendment: the other Bill of Rights clause about houses.
• Module 19, The Fifth Amendment: self-incrimination, due process and takings.
• Module 20, The Sixth Amendment: counsel and confrontation once a case is charged.
• Module 10, The Civil War Amendments: the Fourteenth Amendment and incorporation against states.
• Module 5, Federalism and the States: why state constitutions can say more than the federal text.

Sources & Further Reading

Primary Sources

• National Archives, The Bill of Rights: A Transcription
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment IV, Doc. 9: Virginia Declaration of Rights, sec. 10 (1776)
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment IV, Doc. 10: Maryland Declaration of Rights, art. 23 (1776)
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment IV, Doc. 11: Massachusetts Constitution, art. XIV (1780)
• The Founders' Constitution, Amendment IV, Doc. 13: House debate, Aug. 17, 1789
• Idaho Constitution, art. I, § 17
• Idaho Code, title 19, chapter 44 (search warrants)
• Idaho Code § 21-213 (unmanned aircraft)
• Idaho Code § 49-1432 (automated license plate readers)
• Idaho Code § 74-124 (law enforcement records)
• 42 U.S.C. § 2000aa (Privacy Protection Act)

Court Opinions

• Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886)
• Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914)
• Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928)
• Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961)
• Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967)
• Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)
• Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1983)
• United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984)
• Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001)
• United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012)
• Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014)
• Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018)
• Barnes v. Felix, 605 U.S. 73 (2025) (No. 23-1239)
• Case v. Montana, No. 24-624 (2026)
• Chatrie v. United States, No. 25-112 (2026)
• State v. Pulizzi, No. 49710 (Idaho Nov. 29, 2024)

Secondary Sources and Further Reading

• Constitution Annotated, Amdt4.2: Historical Background on the Fourth Amendment
• Privacy SOS, Mass. High Court on License Plate Reader Surveillance (McCarthy)
• WHRO, A federal judge ruled Norfolk's Flock surveillance cameras don't invade people's privacy, yet
• UNC School of Government, Quick Thoughts about Flock Cameras, the Fourth Amendment, and the Courts

Footnotes

1. National Archives, The Bill of Rights: A Transcription, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/bill-of-rights-transcript. The Fourth Amendment's text, its place as "Article the sixth" of the twelve articles Congress proposed on September 25, 1789, and ratification of ten articles by December 15, 1791 are from this page. The 54-word count is this lesson's count of the transcription.
2. Constitution Annotated, Amdt4.2, Historical Background on Fourth Amendment, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-4/historical-background-on-fourth-amendment. Source for Semayne's Case (1604), Pitt's 1763 speech, Wilkes v. Wood (1763), Entick v. Carrington (1765), the writs of assistance and their life-of-the-sovereign term, Madison's June 8, 1789 text, the August 17 House vote on Benson's motion, the Lasson theory, and the two-clause question.
3. Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/116/616. The opinion quotes James Otis on the writ of assistance and calls Lord Camden's judgment in Entick "one of the landmarks of English liberty."
4. Virginia Declaration of Rights, sec. 10 (June 12, 1776), in The Founders' Constitution, vol. 5, Amendment IV, Doc. 9, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIVs9.html.
5. Maryland Constitution of 1776, Declaration of Rights, art. 23, in The Founders' Constitution, vol. 5, Amendment IV, Doc. 10, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIVs10.html.
6. Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, Part the First, art. XIV, in The Founders' Constitution, vol. 5, Amendment IV, Doc. 11, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIVs11.html.
7. House of Representatives, Amendments to the Constitution, Aug. 17, 1789, Annals of Congress 1:754, in The Founders' Constitution, vol. 5, Amendment IV, Doc. 13, https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIVs13.html. This lesson did not trace the clause through the Senate or the final House-Senate conference.
8. Case v. Montana, No. 24-624 (U.S. Jan. 14, 2026), argued Oct. 15, 2025, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/24-624. Justice Kagan wrote for a unanimous Court; Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch filed concurrences. The slip opinion was subject to revision when this lesson read it.
9. Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U.S. 141 (2013) (decided April 17, 2013), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/11-1425.
10. Torres v. Madrid, 592 U.S. 306 (2021) (decided March 25, 2021), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/19-292. Justice Barrett took no part.
11. Chatrie v. United States, No. 25-112 (U.S. June 29, 2026), argued April 27, 2026, https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/25-112. Syllabus and opinions as posted by Cornell LII; the slip opinion was subject to formal revision when this lesson read it, and it had no U.S. Reports citation yet. A news account of the ruling is at https://www.wowt.com/2026/06/30/supreme-court-rules-geofence-warrants-data-privacy-case/.
12. Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001) (decided June 11, 2001), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/533/27.
13. Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/277/438. Justice Brandeis's dissent contains the "right to be let alone" passage.
14. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967) (decided Dec. 18, 1967), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/389/347. Justice Stewart's opinion, Justice Harlan's concurrence (the two-part test) and Justice Black's dissent are all in this text. The opinion notes that one Justice took no part.
15. United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012) (decided Jan. 23, 2012), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/10-1259.
16. Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1 (2013) (decided March 26, 2013), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/11-564.
17. California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988) (decided May 16, 1988), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/486/35.
18. California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207 (1986) (decided May 19, 1986), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/476/207; Florida v. Riley, 488 U.S. 445 (1989) (decided Jan. 23, 1989), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/488/445.
19. Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170 (1984), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/466/170. The syllabus states that the open fields doctrine should be applied to the two fields in question; in one case the owner had posted "No Trespassing" signs.
20. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) (decided June 10, 1968), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/392/1.
21. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996) (decided June 10, 1996), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/517/806.
22. Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348 (2015) (decided April 21, 2015), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/13-9972.
23. Barnes v. Felix, 605 U.S. 73 (2025) (No. 23-1239, decided May 15, 2025), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/23-1239. Justice Kagan wrote for a unanimous Court; Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence was joined by Justices Thomas, Alito and Barrett. The decision date (argued January 22, 2025, decided May 15, 2025) is from the opinion's own syllabus on that page, and the U.S. Reports cite is from the Supreme Court's 2024 Term slip-opinion list at supremecourt.gov.
24. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1983) (decided June 8, 1983), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/462/213.
25. Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/438/154.
26. Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551 (2004) (decided Feb. 24, 2004), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/540/551.
27. Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547 (1978) (decided May 31, 1978), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/436/547.
28. Privacy Protection Act of 1980, 42 U.S.C. § 2000aa, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000aa. This lesson read subsection (a) and the opening of its exceptions. It did not read the rest of the section or the private-remedy provisions.
29. Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523 (1967), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/387/523.
30. Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969) (decided June 23, 1969), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/395/752.
31. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980) (decided April 15, 1980), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/445/573.
32. Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452 (2011) (decided May 16, 2011), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/09-1272.
33. Mitchell v. Wisconsin, 588 U.S. 840 (2019) (decided June 27, 2019), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/18-6210. Justice Alito announced the judgment and wrote for a plurality; Justice Thomas concurred in the judgment.
34. Lange v. California, 594 U.S. 295 (2021) (decided June 23, 2021), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/20-18.
35. Caniglia v. Strom, 593 U.S. 194 (2021) (decided May 17, 2021), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/20-157.
36. Collins v. Virginia, 584 U.S. 586 (2018) (decided May 29, 2018), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/16-1027.
37. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218 (1973) (decided May 29, 1973), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/412/218.
38. Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014) (decided June 25, 2014), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/13-132.
39. Maryland v. King, 569 U.S. 435 (2013) (decided June 3, 2013), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-207.
40. United States v. Miller, 425 U.S. 435 (1976) (decided April 21, 1976), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/425/435.
41. Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979) (decided June 20, 1979), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/442/735.
42. United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983) (decided March 2, 1983), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/460/276.
43. Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018) (decided June 22, 2018), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/16-402.
44. United States v. Smith, No. 23-60321 (5th Cir. Aug. 9, 2024) (King, J.), https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/23/23-60321-CR0.pdf. The panel held that geofence warrants are "general warrants categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment" and affirmed anyway on the good-faith exception. This lesson did not check the later history of that decision.
45. Commonwealth v. McCarthy, 484 Mass. 493, 506 (2020) (decided April 16, 2020), https://masscases.com/cases/sjc/484/484mass493.html. This lesson read the page through a summarizing fetch tool, which returned the quoted sentence and the holding; the court's own PDF could not be opened directly. A privacy-group account of the case is at https://privacysos.org/blog/mass-high-court-license-plate-reader-surveillance-can-trigger-constitutional-protections/.
46. Toby Cox, "A federal judge ruled Norfolk's Flock surveillance cameras don't invade people's privacy, yet," WHRO (Feb. 11, 2026), https://whro.org/business-growth/2026-02-11/a-federal-judge-ruled-norfolks-flock-surveillance-cameras-dont-invade-peoples-privacy-yet, reporting the January 27, 2026 ruling of Judge Mark Davis in the Eastern District of Virginia, the 51-page opinion, the 176 cameras, the 21-day retention in Virginia and the plaintiffs' photographed counts. This lesson could not open the opinion itself.
47. Jeffrey B. Welty, "Quick Thoughts about Flock Cameras, the Fourth Amendment, and the Courts," UNC School of Government, North Carolina Criminal Law blog (Sept. 14, 2026), https://www.sog.unc.edu/blogs/nc-criminal-law/quick-thoughts-about-flock-cameras-fourth-amendment-and-courts-0. Source for the reporter citation Schmidt v. City of Norfolk, 819 F. Supp. 3d 492 (E.D. Va. 2026), for the statement that the author knew of no ruling that Flock use violates the Fourth Amendment, and for the Fourth Circuit's tentative December 8 to 11 argument window. This lesson read the page through a summarizing fetch tool.
48. Recording Law, "Federal Appeals Court Weighs Whether Norfolk's Flock License Plate Camera Network Violates the Fourth Amendment" (June 21, 2026), https://www.recordinglaw.com/news/norfolk-flock-license-plate-cameras-fourth-amendment-appeal/: appeal No. 26-1227, fully briefed as of June 20, 2026. This lesson read the page through a summarizing fetch tool.
49. Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/232/383.
50. Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385 (1920), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/251/385.
51. Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25 (1949), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/338/25.
52. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/367/643.
53. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/371/471.
54. Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128 (1978) (decided Dec. 5, 1978), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/439/128.
55. Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431 (1984) (decided June 11, 1984), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/467/431.
56. Utah v. Strieff, 579 U.S. 232 (2016) (decided June 20, 2016), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-1373.
57. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984) (decided July 5, 1984), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/468/897.
58. Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586 (2006) (decided June 15, 2006), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/04-1360. Justice Scalia wrote for the Court in all but Part IV; Justice Kennedy concurred in part and in the judgment.
59. Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135 (2009) (decided Jan. 14, 2009), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/07-513.
60. Idaho Constitution art. I, § 17, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtI/Sect17/.
61. State v. Pulizzi, No. 49710 (Idaho Nov. 29, 2024) (Brody, J.), as hosted at https://statecourtreport.org/sites/default/files/fastcase/converted/State%20v.%20Pulizzi%2C%20Idaho%2049710.pdf. The court's description of Donato, McCall, Pool, Webb, Guzman, Thompson and Koivu, with their citations, is taken from this opinion. This lesson did not open those earlier opinions directly, and could not open the Idaho Supreme Court's own PDF.
62. Idaho Code title 19, ch. 44 (search warrants), https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title19/T19CH44/; sections 19-4401, 19-4403, 19-4409, 19-4411 and 19-4412 read at https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title19/T19CH44/SECT19-4403/ and the parallel section pages.
63. Idaho Code § 21-213, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title21/T21CH2/SECT21-213/. The history line reads "added 2013, ch. 328, sec. 1, p. 859; am. 2020, ch. 282, sec. 1, p. 822."
64. Idaho Code § 49-1432, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title49/T49CH14/SECT49-1432. The history line reads "added 2025, ch. 316, sec. 1, p. 1320." This lesson read the text as posted on the Idaho Legislature's site in October 2026.
65. Idaho Senate Bill 1180 (2025), bill history, https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2025/legislation/S1180/: Senate passed 25 to 10 on March 27, 2025; House passed 45 to 24, with one absent, on April 3; signed by the governor April 4; session law chapter 316; effective July 1, 2025.
66. Idaho Code § 74-124, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title74/T74CH1/SECT74-124/.