Volume 138 Issue 8 June 2025

Criminal Procedure Articles

Unwarranted Warrants? An Empirical Analysis of Judicial Review in Search and Seizure

Every year, police perform searches governed by the Fourth Amendment on hundreds of thousands of individuals and their property throughout the United States. Many of the academy’s most decorated scholars have focused on the genesis and jurisprudential nature of the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Surprisingly, we know almost nothing about how the Fourth Amendment regulates searches and how searches actually work in practice.In this Article, we pull back the curtain on the search and seizure process by presenting the largest quantitative study of warrants of any kind.
  • Miguel F.P. de Figueiredo
  • Brett Hashimoto
  • Dane Thorley
Criminal Procedure Appendix

Appendix for Unwarranted Warrants? An Empirical Analysis of Judicial Review in Search and Seizure

* * * APPENDIX I: EXAMPLES OF WARRANT AFFIDAVITS Figure I.A: Standard DUI Warrant Example Figure I.B: “Form” Affidavit for General Warrant Figure I.C: “Form” Affidavit for DUI Blood Draw Figure I.D: Example Affidavit and Warrant…
First Amendment Notes

Fighting Words at the Founding

“God hates you wicked baby killing whores,” “cocksucker,” “fucking cunt,” and “shut your fucking mouth, you bitch” are statements that start fights. In 1791, it was similarly inflammatory to call someone a “drunkard,” “l(fā)iar,” “puppy,” “blackguard,”…
Constitutional Law Notes

“Background Principles” and the General Law of Property

The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment provides that when the government takes private property for a public purpose, it must compensate the property owner. One exception to this rule, the “background principles” exception, establishes that…
Veterans Law Appendix

Appendix for?Codify?Gardner

This Appendix provides the dataset used in the Note, Codify Gardner. The table below lists the decisions that cited Gardner’s presumption, or the pro-veteran canon, between 2013 and 2023, as identified by editors of the Harvard…
Veterans Law Notes

Codify?Gardner

The Gardner presumption, also known as the pro-veteran canon, is a substantive canon of interpretation named after the Supreme Court case Brown v. Gardner. The canon instructs courts to construe ambiguous statutes concerning veterans’ benefits in favor of the veteran. While the canon today rarely acts as a tiebreaker, it has historically represented a strong congressional intent to care for veterans.
Criminal Justice Notes

Making Equal Protection Protect

Eighty-year-old Lavetta Langdon was convicted of shooting and killing her husband, Larry Langdon, while he slept. She later described decades of abuse by her husband, including being forced to eat pet food naked in front of…
First Amendment Recent Case

CompassCare v. Hochul

The fundamental right to expressive association first emerged in NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, a case that shielded a civil rights organization from forced disclosure of its membership. In the following years, some have contested…
Originalism Recent Case

Lara v. Commissioner Pennsylvania State Police

If a constitutional amendment were written today, one might assume an originalist would interpret it according to its meaning today. If that originalist were on the Third Circuit, however, one might be wrong. Recently, in Lara…
Administrative Law Recent Case

Nebraska v. Su

Over two decades after then-Professor Elena Kagan published her seminal article Presidential Administration, presidential involvement in agency action has increased so much that it might now be best described as presidential domination. The Supreme Court confirmed…
Reproductive Rights Recent Case

Deanda v. Becerra

Revocation of the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has raised concern that other substantive due process rights may face a similar fate. Concurrently, parental rights have only expanded as advocates…
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About the Harvard Law Review

Founded in 1887, the Harvard Law Review is a student-run journal of legal scholarship. The Review is independent from the Harvard Law School and a board of student editors selected through an anonymous annual writing competition make all editorial decisions. The print Review and its online companion, the Forum, are published monthly from November through June. The Review, the Forum, and online Blog welcome submissions throughout the year.

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The Bluebook?

Forum

Religion Essay

Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, and Title VI: A Guide for the Perplexed

  • Benjamin Eidelson
  • Deborah Hellman
Environmental Law Response

Waste, Property, and the Democratic Process

Response to Waste, Property, and Useless Things
  • Eduardo M. Pe?alver
Civil Rights Fellowship Essay

Administrative Nullification and the Precarity of Carceral Reform

  • Riley Doyle Evans
  • Stefen R. Short
Constitutional Law Response

Constructing Constitutional Rights

Response to Determining Rights
  • Stephanie Hall Barclay
Article II Response

Disqualification, Immunity, and the Presidency

Response to Structural Logics of Presidential Disqualification
  • Gillian E. Metzger
Torts Response

Torts Stories After Bivens

Response to Federal Tort Liability After?Egbert v. Boule: The Case for Restoring the Officer Suit at Common Law
  • E. Garrett West
Statutory Intepretation Transcript

Interpreting Legal Texts

  • Stephen G. Breyer
  • Kevin Newsom
  • Alana Frederick
  • Thomas E. Nielsen
More from the Forum

Blog

Immigration Law Blog Essay

The Immigrant Registration Requirement’s Self-Incrimination Problem

  • Rachel Landry
  • Allison Crennen-Dunlap
Discrimination Blog Essay

Beyond Classification and Subordination: A Case for Anti-Essentialism

  • Lihi Yona
  • Maayan Sudai
Immigration Blog Essay

Preemption, Labor, and Movement Strategy: Lessons from Nwauzor on Detention Capitalism

  • Siddharth Jejurikar
  • Ibrahim Bharmal
Immigration Blog Essay

The Immigrant Rights Resistance Lives

  • Ibrahim Bharmal
Bankruptcy Blog Essay

A Mill of Miller:? Examining the Supreme Court’s Recent Bankruptcy Jurisprudence

  • Declan R. Kunkel
Executive Power Blog Essay

Using IEEPA to Limit Personal Remittances

  • Daniel Frederick Wasserman
More from the Blog

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Fourteenth Amendment
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Articles

Civil Rights Articles

The Forgotten History of Prison Law: Judicial Oversight of Detention Facilities in the Nation’s Early Years

  • Wynne Muscatine Graham
Evidence Articles

Excited Delirium, Policing, and the Law of Evidence

  • Osagie K. Obasogie
Property Articles

Waste, Property, and Useless Things

  • Meredith M. Render
Immigration Law Articles

The Law and Lawlessness of U.S. Immigration Detention

  • Alina Das
More Articles

Essays

Constitutional Interpretation Essay

Originalism’s Age of Ironies

  • Sherif Girgis
Employment Law Essay

“An Arbitrary Fraction”: How the Family and Medical Leave Act Fails Rural Workers

  • Melanie Hagerman
More Essays

Book Reviews

Abortion Law Book Review

How to Get Free in a Time of Retrenchment

  • Kimberly Mutcherson
Bankruptcy Book Review

Who’s Afraid of Bankruptcy

  • Abbye Atkinson
More Book Reviews

Tributes

In Memoriam Tribute

In Memoriam: Professor Charles Fried

  • Stephen Breyer
  • John C.P. Goldberg
  • Richard J. Lazarus
  • Martha Minow
  • Stephen E. Sachs
In Memoriam Tribute

Professor Gerald E. Frug

  • David J. Barron
  • John C.P. Goldberg
  • Richard T. Ford
  • Michelle Wilde Anderson
More Tributes

Recently Cited

The student pieces featured below have been recently cited in judicial opinions and legal scholarship.

Habeas Corpus Leading Case

Shinn v. Ramirez

Fourth Amendment Recent Case

United States v. Tuggle

42 U.S.C. § 1983 Recent Case

Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc. v. Mack

Federal Courts Recent Case

United States v. Varner

Federal Courts Leading Case

Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski

Standing Leading Case

TransUnion v. Ramirez

Torts Recent Case

Haskins v. 3M Co.

Consumer Law Recent Regulation

Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans

Alternative Dispute Resolution Recent Case

Revitch v. DIRECTV, LLC

Civil Rights Recent Case

Wilson v. Houston Community College System

Fourth Amendment Notes

Geofence Warrants and the Fourth Amendment

Indian Law Leading Case

McGirt v. Oklahoma