What damages are collectible based on an unreasonable search, if nobody is physically harmed and no property is damaged?
The answer is: it depends on how you look at it. And it depends on what you are willing to fight for.
Defense lawyers will argue that there is no “harm” in this sort of scenario. No medical bills. No repair costs. From their point of view, it’s a big zero.
But the Fourth Amendment is not just a piece of paper.
The right to be from unreasonable searches and seizures is a basic part of what it means to be American. It’s an idea that we fought a war over. It’s a principle that distinguishes our system of government from that of more totalitarian nations.
As as iconic trial lawyers like Nick and Courtney Rowley have emphasized, a narrow focus on purely “economic” damages can make us miss the bigger, deeper narrative of a case, which sometimes has to do with these basic values — and with the extraordinary degree of disrespect that law enforcement sometimes demonstrates for these values, in spite of their charge to uphold the law.
When we help the defendants and the fact-finder understand this more fundamental story, we make the full value of constitutional rights apparent.
Photo by Lukas Juhas on Unsplash.