I was thinking about the reasonable search and seizure Amendment. Now, it seems to me that the police get a warrant to search a suspect’s house at the drop of a hat, once a high profile crime has been committed. Don’t really remember specific cases, but, when they do come up, I note them. And, it seems to happen a lot.
So, how do police justify a home search to a judge, if I pop a cap on granny? She lived across town, that’s where the body gets found, and I could have stashed the Uzi in a garbage can along the way. Isn’t the criteria something like 'there is reasonable cause to believe/say with certainty that the Uzi is stashed in hh’s home?"
Pretty much. The police have to go to the judge and say, "We suspect handsomeharry shot his granny and then hid the murder weapon in his house because we have affidavits from the people in his local bar and they all said he walked in after she was shot and announced, “I killed my granny and am hiding the gun in my house”.
So then the judge issues a warrant that says something like, “The police may go to handsomeharry’s house between 9 am and 4 pm and may search for and seize any guns found on the premises.”
So then the police execute the warrant, find the Uzi, and you’re in trouble.
I don’t, but the guys in the uniforms are wanting something pretty fast!
Seriously, though. I’m thinking of stuff like maybe Scott Peterson? Timothy McVeigh? OJ? Didn’t the police come up with warrants for these guys? I know OJ didn’t tell anybody that he had a knife. Peterson, who knows about that idiot. McVeigh…I can’t see anybody saying he had some kind of bomb making stuff in his house…Even if they did, wouldn’t there have to be some compelling reason to think that it was *still *there?
Well, I think there are many, many examples of someone committing a murder and taking the murder weapon home, so it’s a pretty reasonable inference that a particular person probably did the same thing.
It may not seem like the smart thing to do, but people in general aren’t smart, and people in the aftermath of a murder are even less rational than usual.
Based on the extensive legal education I’ve gained from watching Law and Order and CSI, the police might also be looking for any blood spatter on your clothing. They might also look for carpet fibers on your shoes that match the crime scene.
Perhaps you could list some examples of what you do consider reasonable searches? Because “dude is a suspect in a murder, therefore let’s issue a warrant to search his home” sounds about as straightforward as they come, to me.
And they’re not just looking for the gun, either. If the police are at all competent, then the warrant will be for them to search for “any evidence relating to the murder of Granny McGrandmother, including, but not limited to…”, followed by a page-long list of everything the police think there’s a chance of finding. Heck, for all they know, you might be keeping a diary talking about how you can’t wait for the old biddy to croak so you can inherit, and discussing possible methods.
In the O.J. Simpson case, there wasn’t a warrant, at least not initially. Police relied on an exception to the warrant requirement and claimed “exigent circumstances” allowed them to enter OJ’s home. Since his wife had just been murdered two miles away, his Ford Bronco parked out front had bloodstains on it, and nobody answered his telephone when they called, police determined that an potential emergency situation existed and entered Simpson’s property without a warrant.
Don’t forget: The Amendment prohibits “unreasonable” searches. If a search is reasonable, it is allowed, even if there is no warrant. For an obvious example, if a policeman sees the suspect shoot the victim, then run into a building, he doesn’t need a warrant to search the building right away. It is the reasonable thing to do.
Usually the police list small items when requesting a search warrant. They do this because the Supreme Court has ruled the law enforcement agency can only look where the item could be found.
For instance, if the search warrant is looking for a machine gun, it can’t be hidden in a small drawer, therefore the cops couldn’t look in a small drawer. Why? Because if the machine gun wouldn’t fit in their, and that is what’s on the warrant, the cops shouldn’t be there in the first place.
This is why the law enforcement agents when they request a warrant list small things, like drugs or other small things that can be hidden in tiny places. This gives them a legit reason to search everywhere.
But it’s not really difficult to get a search warrant on a “person of interest” as they are now called. No judge is gonna risk having that come back to bite him in the, well you know.
So unless the law enforcement agency is being very unreasonable they’ll go along with it.
The procedures would have to be different from place to place. Most places I have seen there is not much choice. Judges come up on a rotational basis. And usually the police work through a DA and don’t go directly to a judge.
There’s all kinds of little pieces of physical evidence lying around that will link you to a crime you committed. And a likely place to find them would be at your house, where you presumedly spent a lot of time.
Well, that’s the whole point. Just because I’m a suspect, doesn’t make it reasonable to search my house. Isn’t this just a fishing expedition, unless they have a reason to believe it is there, right now? I mean, I could have stashed the weapon. It’s over 5 miles to granny’s!
So, again, what would make it reasonable to search your house, in your opinion? Because you’re not going to be anything more than a “suspect” until there’s some evidence, and the way they get that evidence is by searching for it.
I think you’re also missing the point a couple of others have made: they’re searching for more than just the gun. Yes, you could have ditched it somewhere in those intervening 5 miles. Did you also strip naked, wash several times using multiple different solvents and surfactants, put on a fresh set of previously-sealed clothes in a different room, burn the old clothes and anything else you touched, and reduce your vehicle to its component molecules, in those 5 miles? If the answer is “no,” there’s a reasonable suspicion that there’s some valuable evidence in your home worth a search warrant.
Something made you a suspect. That something is probable cause. At least the suspicion must rise to that level before a warrant will be issued. You are not a suspect because someone put a suspect sign on you. Its because there is evidence. If there is enough evidence to get a warrant they are looking for any other evidence not just the weapon.
That’s not quite accurate. Any search without a warrant is per se unreasonable, unless one of the “jealously guarded” exceptions to the warrant requirement is present. These include consent, exigent circumstances, protective search, open view, plain view and search incident to arrest.
