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48 S.D. L. Rev. 104 (2003)
United States v. Drayton: Attention Passengers, All Carry-On Baggage and Constitutional Protections Are Checked in the Terminal

handle is hein.journals/sdlr48 and id is 114 raw text is: UNITED STATES V. DRAYTON UNITED STATES V. DRA YTON: ATTENTION PASSENGERS, ALL CARRY-ON BAGGAGE AND CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS ARE CHECKED IN THE TERMINAL JEREMY R. JEHANGIRI The protections of the Fourth Amendment largely determine 'the kind of society in which we live.''1 In United States v. Drayton,2 the United States Supreme Court narrowly read and applied the Fourth Amendment, which serves to protect against suspicionless and/or unreasonable searches and seizures. In the government's war on drugs, bus sweeps are a popular method of drug interdiction. This recent decision signals a change in how suspicionless bus sweeps performed by law enforcement officers are protected and, conversely, how citizens' Constitutional rights are overlooked The Court in its analysis compared instances of police questioning taking place on the street and airport terminals with those occurring on an interstate bus. The Court held that police questioning on the street and within the strict confines of a bus are one and the same. This casenote will explore the coercive effect of a suspicionless bus encounter. In addition, this casenote will explore whether the right to refuse should accompany such encounters with law enforcement officers, as well as examine the test involved to determine voluntary consent. Summarily, the notion of voluntary consent is in desperate need of reevaluation. The Fourth Amendment's twin probable cause and warrant requirements prohibit police officers from conducting arbitrary searches of a person's home, vehicle, or belongings. Due in part to the amendment's literal language, however, the United States Supreme Court has recognized various exceptions to these procedural safeguards. One of these exceptions, the consent search, has received a considerable amount of scholarly attention. Although few commentators have questioned the desirability of allowing a citizen to forsake important Fourth Amendment protections, many have challenged the United States Supreme Court's notion of voluntary consent and the legal fiction that it gives rise to - that the reasonable person feels comfortable declining police requests. The intractable reality, opponents assert, is that the vast majority of people are 1. Craig Hemmens & Jeffrey R. Maahs, Reason To Believe: When Does Detention End and a Consensual Encounter Begin? An Analysis of Ohio v. Robinette, 23 OHIO N.U. L. REv. 309, 321 (1996) (quoting ERWIN N. GRISWOLD, SEARCH AND SEIZURE: A DILEMMA OF THE SUPREME COURT 39 (1975)). 2. United States v. Drayton, 122 S.Ct. 2105 (2002). 20031

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