This article examines the constitutional doctrine governing administrative searches and inspections, focusing on the development of Fourth Amendment standards outside the traditional criminal investigatory context. Primus analyzes how the Supreme Court has historically distinguished regulatory and administrative searches from criminal searches, and how those distinctions have become blurred over time.
Drawing on case law and doctrinal history, the article identifies two analytically distinct categories of administrative searches and explains how their conflation has generated confusion in both judicial reasoning and enforcement practice. The study clarifies the legal foundations of warrant requirements, probable cause standards, and the purposes underlying regulatory inspections conducted pursuant to statutory authority.
The article situates administrative search doctrine within the broader framework of public regulation and governmental oversight, emphasizing that such searches arise from regulatory power rather than individualized suspicion of criminal wrongdoing. This work is frequently cited in scholarship addressing administrative enforcement, inspection regimes, and the constitutional limits of regulatory authority.
Citation
Primus, E. B. (2011). Disentangling administrative searches. Columbia Law Review, 111, 254–313.
Columbia Law Review (PDF)