There may not be a more mysterious term in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence than “purpose.” In this context, purpose is generically defined as the reason or reasons an officer took certain action. It is understandable that courts would elect to focus heavily on an officer’s purpose. If we wish to deter bad actors and promote an egalitarian administration of justice, an officer’s motivation for acting should be critically important to an analysis of the constitutionality of that officer’s action. Yet, the United States Supreme Court has consistently held that the subjective purpose of a police officer is irrelevant under the Fourth Amendment, outside of the special needs or administrative inspection context. This potential paradox is perhaps most puzzling in the context of whether an officer has conducted an unconstitutional search in the curtilage of one’s home.
This article focuses on the meaning of the term “purpose,” and its relationship to searches conducted within the curtilage of one’s home under the Fourth Amendment. The analysis primarily focuses on three curtilage cases: one of which is a state case and the others are federal cases. There is a relative dearth of literature discussing purpose under the Fourth Amendment. The existing literature typically advocates for the Court to narrowly consider, or even rely upon, a government actor’s subjective motivation for taking certain actions. In contrast, this article does not dwell on the merits of whether considerations of a subjective purpose are preferable from a policy perspective.
Instead, it first broadly argues that the Supreme Court is consistent when it maintains that an officer’s subjective purpose for acting is irrelevant under the Fourth Amendment. The United States Supreme Court follows precedent and does not rely on, or even consider, an officer’s subjective purpose for acting. Objective evidence alone is used to determine an officer’s ostensible purpose. Therefore, the objective reasonableness of an officer’s actions is critical. Courts often appear to rely on an officer’s subjective purpose with its use of certain language. Nonetheless, that use simply creates a linguistic illusion of subjectivity. Objective evidence is key. Although the consideration of an officer’s subjective purpose would reduce the number of reprehensible government actors, objective evidence was—and appears to remain—the only evidence vital to the constitutionality of an officer’s actions. Ultimately, an officer’s subjective intent is irrelevant.
This argument leads to an additional, narrower one: purpose is innately subjective. Only the individual actor actually knows why he or she took action. The enunciation of an objective purpose is troubling. Reaching such a conclusion requires the analysis of objective evidence to determine an actor’s ostensible purpose. A court can say what an actor’s objectively determined purpose was. Yet, it cannot definitively say that it was the actor’s actual purpose. In fact, if the Court did determine the actor’s actual purpose, such a determination is constitutionally irrelevant. At the very least, courts currently use language that causes confusion and blurs the line between objective and subjective purposes in their analyses.
Therefore, the Court is inconsistent to the extent it created an “area” prong and a “purpose” prong for testing whether an unconstitutional search occurred in the curtilage of one’s home. The area where the officer conducted the investigation is useful for determining whether the officer’s actions were objectively reasonable and consequently constitutional. This area, however, is not dispositive as to the constitutionality of the officer’s actions. The consideration of all objective evidence, including the area where the officer went, provides an answer to the critical question: whether the officer’s intrusion relates to a lawful reason for entering a home’s curtilage. The purpose prong, in particular, creates issues due to the innate, subjective nature of purpose. Therefore, if the Court desires to make an officer’s subjective purpose truly irrelevant, the two-prong test should be abolished and all references to an individual’s purpose should cease. It is superfluous and confusing if the objective reasonableness of the officer’s actions is critical. A test of objective reasonableness that analyzes whether the officer’s intrusion relates to a lawful reason for entering the curtilage is more manageable, mitigates potential uncertainty, and, in essence, is already in place.