State dependent

Intriguing.  Does military search and seizure depend upon and have to follow state law, even if it is a “federal” officer doing the searching and seizing?

This Article argues for a model of the Fourth Amendment – the contingent Fourth Amendment – that courts and commentators have overlooked. It asserts that the only common-law rules that the Fourth Amendment freezes into the Constitution are those explicitly set forth in the Warrant Clause: rules against warrants that are general, issued on less than probable cause, or unsupported by oath or affirmation. The residuum of constitutional search-and-seizure rules were to be dictated by state law, even when it was a federal officer doing the searching or seizing. On this approach, as a matter of federal constitutional law, a federal officer is generally constrained by the search-and-seizure law of the State where a federal search or seizure occurs.

Michael Mannheimer, The Contingent Fourth Amendment, Northern Kentucky University – Salmon P. Chase College of Law, December 11, 2013