Of course, almost every action the prosecution takes in the courtroom has direct or indirect constitutional implications, but for me the most interesting intersection between the Constitution, litigation and daily life was search and seizure. Everything the police did had constitutional implications, and was reviewed over and again, like an “instant” replay with an infinite number of cameras and endless television timeouts while the ref made his or her decision.
Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is, relatively speaking, pretty young. The exclusionary rule, which “polices the police” with the punishment of exclusion of evidence for unconstitutional search and seizure, didn’t apply to federal law enforcement until Weeks v. United States in 1914 and was not applied to the states until 1961, in Mapp v. Ohio . Between 1961 and 1984, when the court recognized a “good faith” exception to the exclusionary rule, the remedy of suppression of evidence has been tailored as it has been applied in real situations. Evidence found in “plain view” does not get suppressed, nor does evidence seized during a search incident to arrest or which would inevitably have been discovered through proper means. The list goes on.
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