The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap Highlight

After all, how could a preemptive search by a law enforcement officer possibly be constitutional? Didn’t the state need a warrant, or probable cause, to conduct any kind of intrusive search, even of a car—much less someone’s home? That was the idea behind Rocio Sanchez et al. v. County of San Diego, a case filed with the aid of the local ACLU in 2004. Karen Bjorland, the woman who had too many toothbrushes, was one of six litigants in the class-action case. You would think this was a slam-dunk civil liberties case, but you’d be wrong. In fact, courts have been slowly chipping away at the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures for a long time, and the dominant theme in this gradual legal erosion has been an innovative new form of institutional racism, and a creepy inverse correlation between rights and need.