The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government from conducting "unreasonable searches and seizures.What constitutional provision is at issue? What is the constitutional question that the Supreme Court has to answer? Amendment Four to the Constitution was ratified on December 15, 1791. It protects the American people from unreasonable searches and seizures. All of search and seizure law in Ohio, and throughout the United States, emanates from the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable search and seizures of our person, our house, our papers, and our effects. The exclusionary rule is not written in the Constitution. Rather, in 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case called Mapp v. Ohio.