MY CAR IS MY CASTLE: THE FAILED HISTORICAL ROOTS OF THE VEHICLE EXCEPTION TO THE FOURTH AMENDMENT

This Article focuses on overturning the vehicle exception to the Fourth Amendment using historical analysis to bring together a surprising confluence of law from the Founding Era of the United States. It examines the relationship between admiralty law, federal court jurisdiction, and the Fourth Amendment in the formative years of the American republic. Through this analysis, this Article demonstrates that the 1925 Supreme Court case Carroll v. United States, which established the vehicle exception and is still good law, was based upon an improper reading of the historical sources from the time of the Founding onward. As the Article argues, this counsels in favor of overturning the vehicle exception to the Fourth Amendment, because the originalist arguments set forth in Carroll were misguided. This Article also addresses why the Carroll progeny, especially the 1979 case California v. Carney, cannot be justified based on policy grounds. Instead, this Article demonstrates that a textualist reading of the Fourth Amendment requires far stronger protections against warrantless vehicle searches.