Summary Of The Fifth Amendment Violation In Supreme Court Cases

Prohibition marked a period of subtle disregard for the law and American government in the 1920s. Bootleggers capitalized on the movement by gaining profits from illegal speakeasies, which offered Americans a drink and entertainment away from the workplace. As organized crime and its bosses grew more powerful, the American government investigated the matter to keep citizens safe and to encourage shoppers to spend their money on “productive industries” that contributed to the economy. However, after law enforcement gathered evidence through wiretaps to arrest suspected criminals, issues regarding the protection from illegal search and seizure arose within the courts. Judiciary examination of the Fourth Amendment asked the question of whether
Police installed wiretaps without a warrant to listen to his phone calls. In a 5-4 decision, the Taft Court ruled that the police’s method of wiretapping did not violate Olmstead’s Fourth Amendment right to protection from unreasonable searches and seizures and did not violate his Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination. According to the majority, a Fourth Amendment violation requires a physical examination of a person or their possessions. Law enforcement did not violate Olmstead’s Fifth Amendment rights as well because “[Olmstead was] not forcibly or illegally made to conduct those conversations.” The telephone was a relatively new form of communication, but the understanding of a personal conversation existed. Since the First Amendment granted freedom of speech and assembly, as well as the freedom to hold private meetings, Americans should have had the right to express personal ideas without fear of government searches, regardless of the medium in which the communication took
Moreover, the police broke a law in the state of Washington that made wiretapping illegal at the time. Despite this unethical behavior, the Court still sided with police, disregarding the illegal actions committed by one party while fighting to put the opposing party, who sought protection from the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, in jail. Brandeis recognized the issue with such government flippancy when he wrote, “if the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.” If the Supreme Court, a body tasked with upholding the rights and promoting the welfare of millions of people, remained indifferent to instances of government abuse, it sent a message to the American people that the government will outweigh their own. Undoubtedly, the Court carried a nebulous view of what constituted a reasonable breach of the law. Olmstead v. United States allowed American citizens to think about their rights as they relate to the government. The right to privacy was central to citizens’ identity: the Founders had conferred such rights when writing the Constitution, and Brandeis argued that this protection endured past technological