History is an important tool when it comes to understanding American law.

History is what the justices of the United States Supreme Court use when they want to ascertain what the framers meant when they drafted the Constitution of 1787 and its first ten amendments in 1789. History is also the tool we use when we want to know how and why the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution and its amendments have changed over time.


Sarah Seo, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Iowa, Fourth Amendment expert, and the author of Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom, joins us to investigate how and why the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Fourth Amendment has changed over time and how that change has impacted the way the Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable search and seizures.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/262 Sponsor Links

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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 098: Gautham Rao, Birth of the American Tax Man
• Episode 112: Mary Beth Norton, The Tea Crisis of 1773
• Episode 160: The Politics of Tea
• Episode 161: Smuggling and the American Revolution
• Episode 259: The Bill of Rights & How Legal Historians Work
• Episode 260: Creating the First Ten Amendments
• Episode 261: Creating the Fourth Amendment

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