Warrants

Warrants  Requirements for a Warrant. o Warrant must be issued by a “neutral and detached magistrate.”  E.g. not by the state attorney general (Coolidge v. New Hampshire). o Must be based on probable cause established from facts submitted by government agent upon oath or affirmation.  See “totality of the circumstances” test for probable cause from Illinois v. Gates. o Must particularly describe place to be searched or person/things to be seized.  See e.g., the degree of precision help sufficient in Andersen. o Warrant itself must provide reasonable precision on its face—not enough if underlying affidavit describes what is to be searched/seized (Groh).  Executing Warrants: the “Knock-and-Announce” Rule. o Generally, officers are required to “knock and announce” before entering a place to execute search warrant—unless officers have reasonable suspicion that doing so “would be dangerous or futile or would inhibit the effective investigation of the crime”—e.g. destruction of evidence (Wilson v. Arkansas, Richards v. Wisconsin).  But courts must determine whether a no-knock raid was justified on a case-by-case, fact-specific basis. For example, no blanket to the “knock-and-announce” rule for ALL investigations (Richards). o Even if no-knock raid was unreasonable and thus violated the Fourth Amendment, exclusionary rule does not apply to the evidence obtained (Hudson v. Michigan). Warrant Exceptions.  General Warrants and the Fourth Amendment. o James Otis argued against writs of assistance (a kind of general warrant) in “Paxton’s case” before Massachusetts’ highest court in 1761. John Adams attended and later said: “then and there was the first scene of the first Act of opposition to the Arbitrary claims of Great Britian. Then and there the Child Independence was born.” Under 18th-centru common law, Otis lost. o Entick v. Carrington: a famous civil liberties ruling in favor of a critical journalist, John Entick, in his trespass suit against royal officials who searched his home and seized his papers based on a warrant issued by Lord Halifax, who was a secretary of state, not magistrate; in Lord Camden’s judgment, Halifax lacked legal authority to issue the warrant.  Plain View Doctrine. o The police may seize an object without a warrant if:  The object is in a place where the officer is lawfully present;  And the object is in plain view when the officer discovers it. o Note, the object must truly be in plain view—an officer may not exceed his authority to obtain better view of the object—e.g. it is impermissible even to move some stereo equipment a few inches to view its serial number based on reasonable suspicion that the equipment was stole (Arizona v. Hicks). o The officer must have probable cause to believe the object is the fruit, instrumentality, or evidence of a crime (Coolidge v. New Hampshire; Horton v. California). o “Plain Feel” Doctrine: if, during a valid frisk, an officer, through sense of touch, immediately develops probable cause to believe there is contraband on the stopped person, officer seized it (but officer may not expand frisk to develop probable cause, once there is no longer any reasonable suspicion of weapon, the frisk of that area must stop immediately) (Minnesota v. Dickerson).  Automobile Exception. o Police may search an automobile without a warrant if they have probable cause to believe it contains contraband or fruits, instrumentalities, or evidence of a crime (Carroll v. United States).  Originally justified by exigency rationale, i.e. automobiles are mobile, it would be impractical to require a police officer to obtain a warrant and then return to conduct the search.  Later also justified by the argument that people have a lesser expectation of privacy in their vehicles than in their homes. o In addition, if the police have probable cause to search a vehicle for something, they may search any container in the vehicle that might contain that thing (Acevedo).  But if police only have probable cause to search a container within the vehicle (e.g. a paper bag recently placed in trunk), that probable cause does not extend to justify a search of the entire vehicle.