This is an interesting book of 601 pages which mostly explains why the 4th Amendment is more or less 99 percent null and void. The book gives numerous reasons on how and why the police can search people, their cars, and their homes with out a search warrant.

One interesting section is the chapter which discusses when people can give consent to be searched. It explains in a long detailed section that no matter how terrified, scared, intimidated, or threatened a person feels that when the person gives consent to the police to let them do a search then the search is legal as long as the police officer didn’t actually threaten the person. (The book seems to say that it is perfectly ok for the cops to scare and intimidated a person to get them to consent to a search, and that the courts will always rule the search was valid as long as the police don’t actually threaten the person)

It also explains that even if a person who is under the influence of drugs or alcohol that the persons consent will always make the search legal, despite the fact the person may be incapacitated by the drugs or alcohol.

Another area is “pretext searches”. For example a narcotics police officer is assigned duty as a traffic cop. And the narcotics cop instead of truly trying to enforce traffic codes uses all of his stops as “pretext” stops to search for narcotics. The book explains that as long as the cop had probable cause to make a stop on a traffic code violation, even though he is using it as a pretext stop to look for narcotics then any narcotics arrests the cop makes will be legal (as long as the cop has probable cause to make the narcotics arrest).

Thomson West is a business that publishes legal books.