Abstract
This Note addresses whether people who use criminal aliases to send drugs through the mail should retain their Fourth Amendment rights in those packages. While several circuit courts have identified this as an issue, none have resolved it. One district court has been able to conclude, unquestioned by the higher courts, that such people do not retain their Fourth Amendment rights in the packages. This Note disagrees: People who send drugs through the mail using criminal aliases have Fourth Amendment rights in those packages. Because of the growing opioid crisis in the United States, a crisis fueled in part by drug dealers exploiting the dark web to send their customers dangerous illegal drugs through the mail, this Note does not end with an assertion that drug dealers should enjoy Fourth Amendment protections. Instead, this Note explores the exclusionary rule and how courts could apply it to combat the opioid crisis and dark web drug dealing.
Recommended Citation
Katharine Stewart,
The Fourth Amendment, Dark Web Drug Dealers, and the Opioid Crisis,
70 Fla. L. Rev.
1097
(2018).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol70/iss5/5