Lawful Conviction

Hey, Professor Farris, according to the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department any search or seizure without a warrant must be justified and supported by clear, convincing and articulable facts. Officers must be prepared to justify any and all warrantless searches. A search without a warrant has consistently been found by the courts to be preemptively unreasonable, and therefore invalid, absent specific and articulable facts. If an experienced officer has the reasonable suspicions can articulate to a set of facts and circumstances that criminal activity may be afoot and make rational inferences. (Booker, 2015) The officer must have probable cause under any circumstances that would lead a reasonable man to believe that it is more likely than not a certain individual has committed or is committing an absolute crime. Officers may search vehicles when there is probable cause to believe that contraband or evidence of a crime is present in the vehicle. The vehicles need only to show inherent mobility rather than actual mobility. The search can be made immediately or delayed as long as probable cause existed even if the vehicle has been impounded and immobilized. An officer may search in any place that the object of the search may reasonably be found. This includes locked containers. Probable cause must be item specific. Probable cause for arrest is not probable cause for a search. Probable cause for a warrantless vehicle search has to be just as sufficient as probable cause to support

The simplest and most common type of warrantless searches are searches based upon consent. [1] No warrant or probable cause is required to perform a search if a person with the proper authority consents to a search. [2] A consent search requires the person being searched to freely and voluntarily waive their Fourth Amendment rights, granting the officer permission to perform the

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizures. (People v. Williams 20 Cal.4th 125.) A defendant may move to suppress as evidence any tangible or intangible thing obtained as a result of an unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant. (Penal Code §1538.5(a)(1)(A).) Warrantless searches and seizures are presumptively unreasonable. (Williams, supra, 20 Cal.4th 119; see also Minnesota v. Dickerson (1993) 508 U.S. 366 (stating searches and seizures conducted outside the judicial process are per se unreasonable unless subject to an established exception).) While the defendant has the initial burden of raising the warrantless search issue before the court, this burden is satisfied when the defendant asserts the absence of a warrant and makes a prima facie case in support. (Williams, supra, 20 Cal.4th 130.) Accordingly, when the prosecution seeks to introduce evidence seized during a warrantless search, they also bear the burden in showing that an exception to the warrant applies. (Mincey v. Arizona (1978) 98 S.Ct. 2408; see also People v. James (1977) 19 Cal.3d 99.) Evidence obtained as a result of an unlawful search and seizure is considered “fruit of the poisonous tree” and should be suppressed. (Wong Sun v. United States (1963) 371 U.S. 471; see also Minnesota v. Dickerson (1993) 508 U.S. 372 (stating unreasonable searches are invalid under Terry and should be suppressed).)

The following exceptions do not require probable cause: stop and frisk, incident to arrest, consent, inventory and administrative searches. The most common exception patrol officers encounter in the field is the stop and frisk also commonly known as

Second, there must be probable cause to believe that the items sought are connected to criminal activity (Hall, 2016.) When a search warrant is granted then there needs to be probable cause that is connected to the criminal act in which we are able to find more evidence to prosecute the criminal.

Finally, consent search very supportive to police officer when they get consent to search the person property because instead of having the police officer getting warrant they can just search specific place for instances like a truck of a vehicle. For example, Strauss, Rebecca. Author of “We can do this the Easy Way Or the Hard Way: The use of Deceit to Induce Consent Searches." States, “Once the owner agrees to the search, the police have received consent to search any area in his home where they reasonably may find evidence of the crime they claimed to be investigating. Consent search is like general warrant fails to meet the fourth amendment particularity requirement because it to general. Strauss, Rebecca also states, “Like general warrants,

For searches without a warrant, then its mandatory to comply with standards of probable cause is the court. Even the searches being made for a criminal cannot be made without the existence of a proper probable cause. Therefore the officers don’t have the right to lawfully carry on searching and arresting people without having the proper probable cause with them.

In exigent circumstances a warrant is not necessary to conduct a search if the circumstances at the time of the search are necessary to prevent physical harm, the concealment or destruction of evidence, or the escape of a suspect and there is not enough time to obtain a search warrant beforehand (codes of criminal procedure, n.d.).

When it comes to Search and Seizure, allot of people think that law enforcement should not be allowed to search or seize property. I have heard many arguments against this subject, people stating that law enforcement officers go too far or have no right to search someone’s property such as their vehicle. Probable cause is more than a reasonable suspicion it requires that a combination of facts makes it more likely than not that items sought are where police believe them to be. In addition to establishing probable cause for a search, a warrant must contain the reasons for obtaining it, the names of people presenting the affidavits, what is specifically being sought and the signature of the judge issuing it.

A detention is reasonable when the detaining officer can point to specific articulable facts that, under the totality of the circumstance, provide an objective basis for suspecting the particular person detained may be involved in criminal activity. (People v. Souza (1994) 9 Cal.4th 224.) As such, an investigatory stop based on mere curiosity, rumor or hunch is an unlawful seizure, even though the officer may be acting in good faith. (People v. Clair (1992) 2 Cal.4th 629.) Nonetheless, reasonable suspicion cannot be justified after the fact by evidence of criminal activity uncovered during the course of the detention. (People v. Gale (1973) 9 Cal.3d 788.) Moreover, mere proximity cannot be enough to create reasonable suspicion because proximity

For a search and seizure to be done the officer has to obtain a warrant, also known as probable cause. By doing this the Fourth Amendment is begin followed, which reads, “The right of people to secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supports by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or thing to be seized” (Constitution.org/2009). An individual also has the right to protect their belongings against unwarranted searches by police officers. Obtaining a warrant is very important because any evidence that is illegally seized by a police officer cannot to be used in court. This is called the exclusionary rule. It was established in 1914 (Criminal Justice today/2009.Ch7). The plain view doctrine occurs when the evidence is simply in plain view. In this case no warrant is needed. In other words, anything that the officer happens to see at the crime scene can be used as evidence. Another time when a warrant is not necessary is when there is an emergency or when the officer has reasons to believe someone in the home is hurt. These situations are referred to as emergency searches.

Search incident to Lawful Arrest- if an individual happens to be arrested lawfully they are no longer a free citizen therefore a police officer may search their persons and any areas that are within their reach. An example can be Mary is arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. She was stopped after swerving through the road and going at a very slow speed. A search of her vehicle found narcotics in the passenger side of the vehicle. She was herself and that was within her wingspan.

Search warrants are not required for fire scenes because the evidence at fire scene needs to be collected as soon as possible because it is important to determine where a fire started and why in order to prevent the fire from starting again and possibly injuring fire fighters or other emergency responders. This wouldn’t be possible if we had to wait more than a couple hours for a search warrant.

There are three exceptions as to when officers do not need search or arrest warrants and/or announce their presence:

Meeting the standard of probable cause requires a demonstration to the judge or magistrate that a crime has occurred, or is occurring and that evidence relative to that crime will be found at a particular location. The investigator must swear, under oath, that the information establishing a probable cause is true to the best of is or her knowledge But in certain cases getting a warrant might take time so based on reasonable suspicion police can go ahead and still conduct the search. The police can conduct searches using numerous ways such as first-hand information if someone tells them you have something your not suppose to based on that information they can go ahead and conduct a search.