RALEIGH — An article written by Campbell Law Professor Shawn Fields is forthcoming in Volume 90 of the University of Chicago Law Review. The article is entitled, “The Fourth Amendment Without Police.”
According to the abstract, Fields’s article addresses the role of the Fourth Amendment in a world without police. Specifically, as society considers the switch to non-traditional law enforcement options, the article addresses whether Fourth Amendment protections extend to “post-police public safety agencies.” The article makes the case that Fourth Amendment protections may not extend to non-police agencies, and therefore, by replacing police, abolitionists will remove procedural guardrails designed to protect citizens from “intrusive government conduct.” This raises significant concerns regarding citizen privacy and liberty interests.
Fields grounds his analysis by exploring various perspectives within the police abolitionist movement, and the potential implications of removing traditional protections like warrants and probable cause from non-police encounters. Fields also proposes three categorical approaches to the Fourth Amendment in a post-police world: abolition subconstitutionalism, abolition endogeneity and objective intrusion theory.
Fields writes and teaches in the areas of Criminal Law and Procedure, Immigration and Asylum Law and Firearms Law and Policy. Prior to coming to Campbell Law, Fields taught Legal Writing & Research at the University of San Diego School of Law, served on the Community Review Board on Police Practices in San Diego, brought constitutional challenges to police conduct in state and federal courts throughout California, and served as the Country Director for an international refugee rights NGO in Tanzania.
Fields currently serves on the ABA Legal Education Police Practices Consortium. He has published 14 articles and essays in some of the nation’s top law reviews, including the University of Chicago Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, UC Davis Law Review, Washington Law Review and Wisconsin Law Review. His book, “Neighborhood Watch: Policing White Spaces in America,” is forthcoming this summer with Cambridge University Press.
ABOUT CAMPBELL LAW
Since its founding in 1976, Campbell Law has developed lawyers who possess moral conviction, social compassion, and professional competence, and who view the law as a calling to serve others. Among its accolades, the school has been recognized by the American Bar Association (ABA) as having the nation’s top Professionalism Program and by the American Academy of Trial Lawyers for having the nation’s best Trial Advocacy Program. Campbell Law boasts more than 4,500 alumni, who make their home in nearly all 50 states and beyond. In 2021, Campbell Law celebrated 45 years of graduating legal leaders and a dozen years of being located in a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of North Carolina’s Capital City.