View article

In the last two decades, the Supreme Court repeatedly has examined consensual encounters between citizens and police that lead to searches. Law enforcement agencies rely heavily on the consensual encounter techniqueto discover evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing, especially narcotics trafficking. But police-citizen encounters and requeststo search pose challenges to the boundaries of the Fourth Amendment. When is an encounter between a citizen and a police officer a consensual one, and when does such an encounter rise to the level of a seizure? When a citizen gives a police officer permission to search his or her bags or person, under what circumstances is such permission considered voluntary, and under what circumstances is such grantof permission no longer voluntary but instead mere acquiescence to legitimate authority? The police tactic of approaching and requesting to search in the …