I recently received a copy of a new Fourth Amendment treatise, a one-volume work by Professor Thomas K. Clancy of the University of Mississippi Law School: The Fourth Amendment: Its History and Interpretation. I’ve spent some time looking through it, and I find it a very noteworthy addition to the Fourth Amendment literature. I wanted to flag it for interested readers.
On one hand, Professor Clancy’s book is a standard treatise: It takes you through the doctrine in a very clean and straightforward way. At the same time, Clancy does two things that are unusual in modern Fourth Amendment treatises. First, Clancy takes the history and text very seriously. He includes coverage of common law practice where relevant, and he carefully compares common law standards to modern ones and explains how the law has evolved. The historical treatment makes the book a helpful resource for scholars or folks just interested in originalism. More narrowly, it’s also helpful for advocates working on Supreme Court cases who are looking for Scalia’s vote.
Second, Professor Clancy avoids editorial comment. His focus is on explaining the law and its contours as clearly as possible, without expressing a view as to whether a hypothetical Justice Clancy would have concurred or dissented. I found a few places where there was editorial comment in the footnotes in response to relevant Fourth Amendment scholarship, but that was about it. I think that’s very refreshing: It makes the book much more readable, as you get a nice, clear summary of the doctrine. That’s not to say the book is unsophisticated; it offers a very high-level and thoughtful engagement with the cases. But the book is clearly designed to be helpful to the reader, not an argument for reform.
Anyway, the book retails for $90, but at least right now there’s a “used” copy available for sale from Amazon for $31. If you’re interested in the Fourth Amendment, it’s very much worth checking out.