how does the US justice system combat rights violations that happen when bad practices are given a new name to avoid old rulings?

Question

For example, a cop trying to "enter and inspect" someone's home without a warrant. but in reality "enter and inspect" and "search" are effectively the same thing with a different name.

To take it a step further, a cop trying to "enter and inspect" someone's home without a warrant is doing so under the pretense of a state, local, or federal law which rules that "enter and inspect is not a search, even though they're effectively the same" would still be violating the 4th amendment, even if the law says that the words are different.

What processes are in place such that new practices, and prosecutions, which violate rights by committing a name not explicitly in the letter of the law, are not made?

Answer 1

The Duck Test

“If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it most probably is a duck.”

Courts do not elevate form over substance.

The duck test was explicitly called out in the dissenting opinion of Sotomayor, J in Garland v. Cargill 602 US (2024). In that opinion, her honor said that a bump stock was a duck, I mean, a machine gun; of course, the majority looked at the same duck, I mean, bump stock, and decided it didn't really look like machine gun ... or a duck.

This illustrates the limits of the duck test: Different people can look at the same bird and reasonably come to different decisions about whether it's a duck or not.

Answer 2

Whether something constitutes a search for Fourth Amendment purposes does not depend on what the state calls it.

A state act is a search when it interferes with one's expectation of privacy that is legitimate and that society finds reasonable to recognize, or when the act is a physical trespass of one's effects or property. See Katz (1967); Jones (2012)

Answer 3

Someone who is harmed appeals it up to the Supreme Court, who overturn the unconstitutional law.

Simply put, the Supreme Court is unlikely to be fooled by police who give an unconstitutional practice a new name to avoid old rulings. They're human beings, not law-intepreting robots.

So, my understanding as someone who is not a lawyer is that someone who is harmed by these police actions would file a lawsuit, a motion to suppress any evidence obtained by illegal searches, or something similar against the police, and if a lower court ruled against them, the could potentially appeal it all the way up to the Supreme Court, who cam overturn any unconstitutional laws.

Answer 4

Let's turn this around: suppose someone is arrested while walking down the street carrying a painting that had just been stolen from the local art museum. At trial, the accused argues that the officer's observation of the painting in the accused's hands was an illegal warrantless search, for which reason the evidence should be suppressed, the arrest should be found unlawful, and any evidence developed in subsequent interrogation should also be suppressed.

Of course, this doesn't work. As others have noted, the courts have defined the circumstances that constitute unreasonable search and seizure without reference to the labels applied by police or by defendants. A good example of this, in fact, is "seizure," which includes many things that people don't commonly think of as falling under that term but would more likely call "stops," such as traffic stops and Terry stops.

Answer 5

There are no fundamental protections from a corrupt Supreme Court justice. They can be impeached and that's about it. The Supreme Court adjudicates all disputes under the constitution, a power the Supreme Court gave itself in Marbury v. Madison. "The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour,". There is some scholarship lately that SCOTUS judges may be able to be given honorary positions that maintain their "Offices" while keeping them off SCOTUS cases.

The example you provide has happened. "In 2006, in the first federal challenge ever argued against the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program, the ACLU defeated the Bush administration when a district court declared the program unconstitutional. But in July 2007, the 6th Circuit overturned that decision. The ACLU asked the Supreme Court of the United States to consider the ruling, but in February 2008, the Court declined to review the challenge." —ACLU v. NSA - Challenge to Warrantless Wiretapping

The Supreme Court ruled in Terry v. Ohio that a stop and frisk is not an unreasonable search and seizure. They ruled in Utah v. Strieff that stopping someone unconstitutionally, discovering they had a valid arrest warrant, then searching them, was a constitutional stop and search.