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the Superior Court of the State of Connecticut from the
Year 1785 to May 1788 (Delmar, N.Y.: Scholars' Facsimiles
and Reprints, 1986), p. 213.
26. Blackstone, vol. 4, p. 288.
27. See Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 114-16 (1975).
28. "[H]istory undeniably supports the proposition that the
framers opposed leaving the power to search and seize
solely in executive hands." Joseph D. Grano, "Rethinking
the Fourth Amendment Warrant Requirement," American
Criminal Law Review 19 (1982): 620. It is noteworthy that
the earliest federal laws on the subject of searches
respected the judicial branch's warrant-issuing preroga-
tive. See, for example, Act of July 31, 1789, 1 Stat. 29,
43 (application for warrant on oath or affirmation before
justice of the peace); and Act of March 3, 1791, 1 Stat.
199, 207 (oath or affirmation, establishing grounds for
reasonable cause for suspicion, before U.S. judge or jus-
tice of the peace).
29. Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654, 706 (1988) (Scalia,
J., dissenting).
30. See Young at 815-25 (Scalia, J., dissenting); and
Irvine v. California, 347 U.S. 128, 142 (1954) (Black, J.,
dissenting). See also Inmates of Attica Correctional
Facility v. Rockefeller, 477 F.2d 375, 379-80 (1975);
United States v. Cox, 342 F.2d 167, 171 (1965); and Smith
v. Gallagher, 185 A.2d 135, 149-54 (1962).
31. Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 544 (1897).
32. County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44, 60
(1991) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (emphasis in original).
33. See, for example, the argument of the attorney general
of California in Respondent's Brief, Chimel v. California,
395 U.S. 752 (1969), pp. 38-41.
Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar has championed a
very similar view of the Constitution. Amar maintains
that the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is
reasonableness, not warrants. That is, the police do not
need search warrants or even probable cause to search the
homes of citizens. According to Amar, police excesses can
be adequately checked by civil damage lawsuits where civil
juries will hold government officials "liable for unreason-
able intrusions against person, property, and privacy."