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The 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects against unlawful search and seizure, was ratified by three-fourths of the states in 1791. Since then, countless civil libertarians and constitutional lawyers have used it push back against government overreach. And in 2025, according to the National Public Radio (NPR) reporter Carrie Johnson, the unlawful-search-and-seizure issue is coming up with President Donald Trump's militarized occupation of Washington, D.C.

In an article published by NPR's website on August 26, Johnson reports, "Veteran defense lawyers and law enforcement experts have been warning about the potential for overreach since the federal government muscled its way into policing decisions in the nation's capital nearly three weeks ago. Inside the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., on Monday, (August 25), those tensions broke into open court. A federal judge dismissed a weapons case against a man held in the D.C. jail for a week — concluding he was subject to an unlawful search."

According to Johnson, the D.C. man, Torez Riley, "appeared to have been singled out because he is a Black man who carried a backpack that looked heavy."

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U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui threw the case against Riley out, complaining, "It is without a doubt the most illegal search I've ever seen in my life. I'm absolutely flabbergasted at what has happened. A high school student would know this was an illegal search…. We don't just charge people criminally and then say, 'Oops, my bad.' I'm at a loss how the U.S. attorney's office thought this was an appropriate charge in any court, let alone the federal court."

Johnson explains, "The arrest — and the decision to abandon the federal case — come at a time of heightened scrutiny on police and prosecutors in the District (of Columbia)."

But Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host and far-right Trump appointee who is now U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, is defending the arrest of Riley.

Pirro told NPR, "This judge has a long history of bending over backwards to release dangerous felons in possession of firearms and on frequent occasions he has downplayed the seriousness of felons who possess illegal firearms and the danger they pose to our community. The comments he made today are no different than those he makes in other cases involving dangerous criminals."

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Faruqui, however, is maintaining that "lawlessness cannot come from the government," adding, "The eyes of the world are on this city right now."

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Read the full NPR article at this link.