Minors and the Fourth Amendment: How Juvenile Status Should Invoke Different Standards for Searches and Seizures on the Street

This Note argues that standards for seizures and consent searches that do not capture the different level of cognitive and emotional development of minors as compared to adults fail to adequately protect juveniles’ Fourth Amendment rights. The Note proposes a new framework for assessing the legality of consent searches and seizures of juveniles on the street. The framework builds on, first, Supreme Court cases in other areas of the law that recognize minors as “different” and, second, scholarship on juveniles’ cognitive, emotional, and social development.