CHRISTOPHER HAUSER STUDY GROUP 🏦

THE FOURTH AMENDMENT HAS A HISTORICAL FLOOR — GOVERNMENT DOES NOT GET TO SHRINK IT. In Victor Javier Grandia Gonzalez v. United States, Justice Sotomayor—joined by Justice Gorsuch—went straight back to the common law to examine the original scope of the Fourth Amendment. The historical rule she identified was blunt: “By the common law of England, neither a civil officer nor a private citizen had the right, without a warrant, to make an arrest for a crime not committed in his presence, except in the case of felony.” The statement then connects that rule directly to Blackstone, Sir Matthew Hale, Kurtz v. Moffitt, Bad Elk v. United States, and the historic distinction between felony arrests and misdemeanor/breach-of-peace arrests. But the constitutional principle is even bigger. The Court’s precedents recognize that the Fourth Amendment: “must provide at a minimum the degree of protection it afforded when it was adopted.” Lange v. California, 594 U.S. 295, 309, quoting United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 411. And Virginia v. Moore explains exactly where courts are supposed to look: “We look to the statutes and common law of the founding era to determine the norms that the Fourth Amendment was meant to preserve.” Then comes the closing line that ties the entire historical inquiry together: “Courts should give due regard to the full scope of the common-law rights now secured by the Fourth Amendment.” Read those propositions together. The Fourth Amendment is not whatever level of protection government finds convenient today. Its constitutional baseline must be examined through the legal protections understood when the People adopted it. That means the historical common law matters. Blackstone matters. Hale matters. Founding-era statutes matter. The original legal meaning of search, seizure, arrest, warrant, person, house, papers and effects matters. And modern government cannot simply erase a historical constitutional protection by replacing it with a broader statute, administrative practice, or judicial balancing test. This fits the same historical methodology we continue seeing across Supreme Court jurisprudence: Heller: constitutional rights retain the scope understood when adopted. Jones / Lange: the Fourth Amendment must provide at least its historical degree of protection. Moore: look to founding-era statutes and common law. Gonzalez: give due regard to the full scope of the common-law rights now secured by the Fourth Amendment. The Constitution did not create unlimited governmental power and then ask government to decide how much liberty the People may keep. Government was delegated limited authority. The rights of the People remain the limitation. Know the text. Know the history. Know the common law. Know the original scope of the right. Because once the historical constitutional baseline is established, the question becomes unavoidable: Where did We the People ever delegate government the authority to reduce it? ⚖️ Gonzalez v. United States, 604 U.S. ___ (2025) (Sotomayor, J., statement respecting denial of certiorari, joined by Gorsuch, J.). #FourthAmendment #CommonLaw #Blackstone #Constitution #KnowYourRights #OriginalMeaning #FoundingEra #DueProcess #Liberty #WeThePeople #ConstitutionalLaw #HistoryMatters