It’s a real nightmare scenario: you’re relaxing after work and suddenly the police pound on the door, demanding to search your home. What do you do?
You ask for a search warrant, but they just keep asking to come in to search. What’s going on? When are search warrants necessary? Will you be incriminating yourself by letting them in to search your place?
Well, read on to get all your burning questions about search warrants answered.
Constitution
For answers to many criminal procedure questions, it’s best to start with the Constitution of the United States. It’s the foundational document that all laws in this country are based upon. According to the 4th Amendment of the Constitution, all Americans are protected from “unreasonable search and seizure.” Searches must be specific and reasonable—not randomized or flippant.
Each state, however, is left to interpret this Amendment and craft laws that honor it and specify what it means in specific applications. Search warrant policy is one legal area that directly relates back to the 4th Amendment.
California search warrant policy
A search warrant may be obtained by law enforcement by applying for one in a court of law. The judge may or may not approve the application, based on whether he or she thinks there’s enough probable cause that a specific item is in a specific location that the law enforcement attends to search. The suspect isn’t present at this court proceeding, though he or she may argue that the search warrant was improperly granted at a later court date.
When is a search warrant not required?
There are some instances when a law enforcement official may search a property without obtaining a warrant from a judge. It’s important to be aware of these conditions to avoid incriminating yourself:
- Consent: This is the big one. If a law enforcement requests to enter someone’s home or search their belongings, and the owner agrees to the search, then the officer doesn’t need a warrant. So if a police officer asks to go through your stuff, no matter how aggressively, you can always say no if you might incriminate yourself by saying yes.
- Plain View Doctrine: This is also a very important one to be aware of—law enforcement officials don’t need search warrants to obtain evidence that’s in plain sight. For example, if a police officer is walking down the street and sees someone smoking illegal drugs, he or she may arrest the person and keep the drugs as evidence in the case. When someone is in public, in plain view, they have lower expectations of privacy than if they were to be in a private home.
- Emergency situation: Police officers may enter a private residence without a warrant if they believe that a person or properly is in imminent danger and that injury would result in the time it would take to obtain a warrant. In addition, if a police officer witnesses a crime and pursues the suspect, he or she may enter a private residence to make an arrest without a warrant.
- Search incident to arrest: In order to protect police officers from concealed weapons, arresting officers may search the body and immediate surroundings of suspects without obtaining a warrant.
Got questions?
If you have any further questions or concerns about search warrant policy in California as it relates to your specific case, contact Southern California’s best criminal defense attorney, Dan Chambers of the Chambers Law Firm. Call 714-760-4088, email dchambers@clfca.com, or use the chat box below to schedule a free case evaluation and ask all your questions.
And if a search warrant was obtained improperly in your case, you can count on Attorney Chambers to use that fact to your utmost advantage as your criminal defense attorney. He knows all the nuances of search warrant policy, and will apply them to your benefit when you hire him to represent you today.
