I’ve somehow been implicated in some heinous crime. Enough evidence has been gathered for a judge to issue a search warrant for my home. The police come and ransack my house, causing some amount of actual damage in the process (broken lamp, crushed toaster, etc.). Later on, the real criminal is caught and convicted - case closed.
Is there any way for me to recoup my losses, without resorting to a lawsuit? Would a lawsuit even work? Or are legal searches exempt from even something as polite as an apology, even when they’re just plain wrong?
Dave “Just Curious” W. http://members.aol.com/psorsite/
“My dream is of a day where every SDMB poster will have a quote of mine in their sig.” - Arnold Winkelried
I would assume that if the authorities broke something during the search and it wasn’t evidence that you would be reimbursed for it, even if you were guilty. They have a search warrant, not a ransacking and pillaging warrant.
As for an apology, I doubt it’s legally required. After all, if a judge gave the police a warrant to search your premises, they must have thought there was sufficient probable cause to perform the search. Now if the police lied to the judge, then you’re in a much better position.
That’s what I would assume, too. I was looking for something more concrete than an assumption.
Driving to work today, thinking about this, it became obvious that ransacking someone’s home would probably be counter-productive to someone trying to do a good search, anyway. Scattering stuff around doesn’t make it any easier to ensure you’ve searched everywhere.
Well, I meant an apology instead of compensation. A reimbursement check for broken goods would be an implied apology, to me at least. If no check were forthcoming, a “hey, we’re really sorry about punching a hole in your Rembrandt” would be the nice thing to say.