Do Warrants Matter?

Minzner Max () and Anderson Christopher M. ()
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Minzner Max: School of Law, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
Anderson Christopher M.: School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, 1122 Boat Street, Seattle, WA 98195, USA

Review of Law & Economics, 2013, vol. 9, issue 2, 169-196

Abstract: We examine traditional criminal wiretaps to determine whether the 4th Amendment’s warrant requirement limits law enforcement. We develop a formal model relating law enforcement’s decision to pursue a wiretap to its exogenous cost, probability of yielding evidence, and the expected value of that evidence. We use the model to analyze success rates of all traditional federal wiretaps initiated 1997–2004. We find budget constraints cause law enforcement to pursue only taps that are particularly likely to succeed. Thus, eliminating the warrant requirement for traditional wiretaps would matter little, and the significance of a warrant requirement for new investigative programs, such as the Terrorist Surveillance Program, depends on budget.

Keywords: warrants; wiretaps; probable cause; law enforcement costs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1515/rle-2012-0027

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