In Minnesota the law is Minnesota Statutes 2010, section 97A.215, subd. 1.
"Subdivision 1.Storage of wild animals.(a) When an enforcement officer has probable cause to believe that wild animals possessed or stored in violation of the game and fish laws are present, the enforcement officer may enter and inspect any commercial cold storage warehouse, hotel, restaurant, ice house, locker plant, butcher shop, and other building used to store dressed meat, game, or fish, to determine whether wild animals are kept and stored in compliance with the game and fish laws.
(b) When an enforcement officer has probable cause to believe that wild animals taken or possessed in violation of the game and fish laws are present, the officer may:
(1) enter and inspect any place or vehicle; and
(2) open and inspect any package or container."
The key concept here is “probable cause.” You can’t search an ice house, for instance, without permission or probable cause.
But that goes beyond what a police officer can do. A police officer needs probable cause to get a warrant for a structure unless there are exigent circumstances.
Maybe the Courts have waived a warrant requirement similar to a federal Fish/wildlife officer allowed to enter a home without a warrant when they have PC to believe it contains an Eagle/egg, ect.
A relative of mine has a house on a lake in a vacation community in Pennsylvania. I was there alone a few summers ago when I saw a State Conservation Officer park his car in front and walk down the driveway towards the back yard. I went out to see what he was up to and saw him scoping out the yard as he walked to the lake. Kind of scared me because we had a few illegal plants growing on the back deck. When he got to the lake he yelled to some people fishing from a boat that was pretty far offshore. He screamed for a fishing license check but they couldn’t hear (or ignored) him. On his way back he was again looking all around till I showed myself. When I asked whats up he said he had to enter our property cause it provided the closest place to reach the boaters (untrue), and left. After moving the plants to a safe house, I looked up what rights I would have had if he had seen the plants (which weren’t obvious unless you got pretty close). Turns out, in Pa. at least, conservation officers can legally enter or cross anyone’s private property in the performance of their duties, without a warrant or permission, and any illegal activity they may observe is legally admissible in a court of law.
It sounds like the answer to this one is 'Yes" at least for some states. That matches what I was told and saw in Louisiana as well. Game Wardens can have special powers that other law enforcement does not.
Wait, so would that mean that PA could just write a law that made all cops simultaneously police and game wardens and they’d “legally” be able to enter private property to perform “game related duty” and see illegal activity that they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise?
I don’t know. Lawyer dopers, has anybody challenged this in the Supreme Court?
It is my (limited) understanding that the reason Game Wardens get their special privileges is because wildlife is the property of the state but it doesn’t obey land boundaries. That means that Game Wardens have to be able to be able to freely roam across all land both public and private to do their core job. They are law enforcement in the general sense too so that also means that their main job will allow them to discover things that other law enforcement would not be able to without a warrant.
I believe we tolerate this arguably unconstitutional situation only because that is the only way for Game Wardens to do the job they need to in protecting wildlife. A state move to declare all law enforcement as Game Wardens would surely attract attention and be shot down.
In my rural Louisiana upbringing, the word on the street was "Fuck with the police at your own discretion but never, ever fuck with a game warden’. Their reputation was that they were the meanest law enforcement there is and had special powers to do anything they wanted to you. A few of my friends did jail time for ignoring that rule and my little brother spent a night in jail for not taking one seriously.
In the defense of Game Wardens, they have an unusually dangerous and thankless job. They have to confront poachers who are usually armed by definition by themselves often deep on private property in the middle of the night. Poaching even fish or birds has some strict penalties with multi-year prison sentences and huge financial penalties including loss of property like guns, boats, and vehicles. You have to be a not so nice person to confront a group of armed rednecks on their own property who know they are about to go to prison and lose everything because you know they are aware of the option to just kill you right then and take their chances.
My wife and I got busted for trout fishing without a license in New Hampshire once. It was a scary ordeal. The Game Warden explained how he could confiscate and destroy all of our property on the spot until my wife started crying and he let us off with only a $60 fine. We didn’t even catch any fish.
You are correct. I did some checking since my last post and found that all Law Enforcement Officers have the right to enter private property in the performance of their duties, but regular police need a good reason to be there (if they find anything illegal unrelated to their original purpose) such as chasing a suspect or hearing a scream or gunshot from your backyard. The difference is that wardens always have a reason to enter anyone’s private property, as Shagnasty stated. He’s also right about them being real pricks for no reason.
This is not a jab at you but at the reasoning in the law.
I’m struggling to envision a scenario where a game warden would need to enter a private residence, where evidence of the poaching could not be gained otherwise. You leave the doors and windows open in the hope some wildlife enters and you can then bag it?!
If the warden has probable cause or evidence that poached wildlife is present can they not go to a judge and get a search warrant like anyone else?
I believe it is more the case that Game Wardens have to be able to travel across all land freely to stop poaching. If you are a farmer with hundreds of acres, your land would be off-limits to regular law enforcement without probable cause or a warrant but that isn’t the case for Game Wardens because they protect game that doesn’t follow human boundaries. They may not even be targeting you as the landowner. Poaching by others commonly happens on private property as well. The unusual powers that they have follow from that idea. They would be able to establish probable cause for a search simply because they have much free access to land and any evidence of crimes that they discover while they are doing their job.
Some of their powers just seem odd however. I gave the example of a Game Warden threatening to confiscate and destroy my private property on the spot without any other process involved other than his discretion. They are known for that. They also seem to have their own special way with boats and vehicles that may or may not be peripherally involved with illegal hunting and fishing.
I am not speaking as a lawyer or Constitutional scholar because I am neither. I am telling you how they work in practice and the reason people say they have more power than other law enforcement.
I agree with you, but I don’t think that “Gee, we can’t enforce the law any other way” is good enough to overcome the 4th amendment. If the law is so far sweeping that it requires trespass on private property, then maybe the law needs to be revised.