Cite as: 510 U. S. 43 (1993)
Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
A
The Court's fixation on Mathews sharply conflicts with both historical practice and the specific textual source of the Fourth Amendment's "reasonableness" inquiry. The Fourth Amendment strikes a balance between the people's security in their persons, houses, papers, and effects and the public interest in effecting searches and seizures for law enforcement purposes. Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U. S. 547, 559 (1978); see also Maryland v. Buie, 494 U. S. 325, 331 (1990); and Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., 489 U. S. 602, 619 (1989). Compliance with the standards and procedures prescribed by the Fourth Amendment constitutes all the "process" that is "due" to respondent Good under the Fifth Amendment in the forfeiture context. We made this very point in Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103 (1975), with respect to procedures for detaining a criminal defendant pending trial:
"The historical basis of the probable cause requirement is quite different from the relatively recent application of variable procedural due process in debtor-creditor disputes and termination of government-created benefits. The Fourth Amendment was tailored explicitly for the criminal justice system, and its balance between individual and public interests always has been thought to define the 'process that is due' for seizures of person or property in criminal cases, including the detention of suspects pending trial." Id., at 125, n. 27 (emphasis added).
The Gerstein Court went on to decide that while there must be a determination of probable cause by a neutral magistrate in order to detain an arrested suspect prior to trial, such a determination could be made in a nonadversarial proceeding, based on hearsay and written testimony. Id., at 120. It is paradoxical indeed to hold that a criminal defendant can be temporarily deprived of liberty on the basis of an ex parte
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