Another Victim of Illegal Narcotics: The Fourth Amendment (As Illustrated by the Open Fields Doctrine)
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ANOTHER VICTIM OF ILLEGAL NARCOTICS: THE
FOURTH AMENDMENT (AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE
OPEN FIELDS DOCTRINE)t
Stephen A. Saltzburg*
The President of the United States has referred to the use of illicit drugs as the number
one problem confronting the nation. Federal, state and international efforts to investigate,
arrest and prosecute drug offenders have intensified, and courts have increasingly been called
upon to deal with drug case. In the process, defendants have challenged various investigative
practices on constitutional grounds, relying particularly on the fourth amendment. The thesis
of this Article is that courts have been too quick to depart from long established fourth
amendment principles to uphold investigative practices developed in the governmental war on
drugs. Professor Saltzburg uses the United States Supreme Court's opinion in Oliver v.
United States to illustrate how courts compromise fundamental fourth amendment principles
in drug cases and to demonstrate that each time a principle is compromised all persons, not
only drug users, find their personal privacy at risk The problem of drug abuse is real, but
equally real is the risk that courts, anxious to respond to the problem of the moment, will
render decisions that will in the long run pose a threat to individual liberty. Oliver, Professor
Saltzburg argues, is such a decision.
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the use and abuse of illegal narcotics has become
one of our nation's gravest problems. This abuse has plagued schools,
factories, professional and collegiate athletics, and even the military.'
It has touched rich and poor alike.2 Congress and various state legis-
latures have passed tougher laws designed to deter drug trafficking
and to provide methods by which the government may eliminate the
t Copyright © 1986, Stephen A. Saltzburg.
* Professor of Law, University of Virginia. A.B., 1967, Dickinson College; J.D., 1970, Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania. This Article is a more complete version of the Louis Caplan Lecture deliv-
ered on April 10, 1986 at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
1. See generally PRESIDENT'S COMM'N ON ORGANIZED CRIME: ORGANIZED CRIME AND CO-
CAINE TRAFFICKING, RECORD OF HEARING IV (1984) [hereinafter ORGANIZED CRIME REPORT].
Even institutions not yet affected by drug problems have begun to adopt prophylactic measures to
deter future abuse. See, eg., Maryland State Police Will Have Drug Tests, Wash. Post, Mar. 19,
1986, at D7, col. 4; Bishop, Drug Testing Coming to Work, CAL. LAW., Apr. 1986, at 28.
2. ORGANIZED CRIME REPORT, supra note 1, at 523 (statement of B. Johnson). See generally
Kids and Cocaine, NEWSWEEK, Mar. 17, 1986, at 58, 63.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/upitt48&div=12&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Another Victim of Illegal Narcotics: The Fourth Amendment (As Illustrated by the Open Fields Doctrine)
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