Dartmouth Events

Co-sponsored by the Dartmouth Lawyers Association and the Dartmouth Legal Studies Faculty Group

Lecture Description:

Judge Meyer will discuss the evolution (de-evolution) of 4th Amendment law involving the government's right to search and seize people, their homes, and their papers and effects, addressing the issue not only in terms of the traditional context of physical searches and seizures but also in terms of the challenges of virtual (electronic) searches and seizures. Part of the remarks will focus on the lack of a coherent theory about just what the 4th Amendment is supposed to protect (e.g., privacy? property? other dignity values)? Judge Meyer will also address the issue from the practical institutional actor standpoint - how Congress has done relatively little to legislate rules for search and seizure (especially in the electronic context) and how the courts in turn have restricted themselves by contracting the exclusionary rule and expanding the doctrine of qualified immunity.

Speaker Bio:

Jeffrey Alker Meyer is a United States District Judge for the District of Connecticut. Prior to his confirmation as a federal judge in 2014, Judge Meyer served nearly 10 years as a federal criminal prosecutor in Connecticut and then as senior counsel to an investigation of international corruption at the United Nations in New York. Following his years of legal practice, Judge Meyer was a Professor of Law at Quinnipiac University School of Law and a Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School where he co-taught the Yale Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic. Judge Meyer previously served as a law clerk for Justice Harry A. Blackmun at the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School where he currently co-teaches a constitutional litigation seminar.