Originally Posted by
RichardKenner
Certainly, the plain language of the amendment is, at best, ambiguous on that topic. There is a logical "break", which can indeed be read to say that only searches due to warrants are "reasonable", but the courts have not read it that way. Look at all the various circumstances when an LEO can do partial searches during various kinds of stops. And the entire adminstrative search doctrine.
Your answer clearly defines our reasonable disagreement. I believe that the clear language should determine its meaning with as little added as possible. You carry the different view, that the determinations of courts and their findings, in this case the administrative search doctrine, supersedes the actual language of the amendment.
I would propose that rather than create new constitutional law by judicial edict, that if a clarification or addition to the language is needed, it is most properly done my the amendment process, a process that is defined by the constitution itself. It is rightly more difficult to do yet at the same time a more simple process.