Atwater v. City of Lago Vista

In interpreting the Fourth Amendment, the Court considers the traditional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures that were provided by the common law at the time of the Constitution’s founding. The Court found the history of the common law conflicted in this area. As a result, it rejected the defendant’s request to create a new rule of constitutional law forbidding custodial arrest, even upon probable cause, when conviction could not ultimately carry any jail time. The Court has traditionally recognized that a responsible Fourth Amendment balance is not well served by standards requiring sensitive, case-by-case determinations of government need. Otherwise, every discretionary judgment in the field would be converted into an occasion for constitutional review.