I am reviving the questions I asked in this thread. The motorcycle club in question has now filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, over the issues I was asking about. To sum up: the police raided a motorcycle club’s Christmas party, no arrests were made, and it seems that the intent of the raid was to compile a “profile” of the club’s membership. Is this constitutionally permitted?
IANAL but AFAIK it’s still illegal for a cop to lie under oath when seeking a warrant, so if the cop told the judge he was looking for X but was really looking for Y, the cop could be up on perjury charges and evidence that resulted from the search would be suppressed. If the cop was truly looking for X and found Y, the admissibility of Y might depend on the wording of the warrant.
Trying to answer your other questions would be WAGs on my part, but my feeling is if the police can refuse to release you from jail before you’re photographed and fingerprinted, then they would be able to photograph you while in custody during the execution of a search warrant.
Well- I am sorry, but getting specific legal advice for a serious legal matter on a MB- even one as great as this- is foolishness. Ask your Lawyer. If you don’t have one, there are likely Legal referal services in your area that will give you a cheap consultation with a real attorney. Or, try the ACLU. IANAL, note.
Do you have convicted felons or parolees there? Parolees can’t associate with certain groups, you know.
Who was asking for specific legal advice? I may happen to live in CT, but I own no motorcycle. I’m just wondering if using a warrrant to search for illegal firearms can be used as an excuse to photo–document every person on the premises where the warrant was served. Otto implies that the officers might face sanctions.
If I were in that situation, I would be worried that every time one of those people comes into contact with law enforcement or criminal justice authorities, they’re going to be labelled as “…a known member of a criminal organization.”
First to your question, if the warrent is obtained for X, which means the judge felt the affaivet by the officer’s was sufficient to show probable cause, then the warrent is valid. Typically, it takes it more then just an officer stating that he thinks “something” is “somewhere”. He must have something more specific to obtain the warrent. That said, if the warrent ask to search for a gun in a specific place, i.e. the bar, then the officers may search ANYWHERE the gun may be. If the warrent only asked to search the person, then the officer’s must stick to that one person. However, for there safety, the officer must “pat-down” anyone in the bar for weapons. In this case, since the person was on parole he has foreited his 4th amend. rights most likely, therefore option one is probably the more likely the scenerio.
To your question, what if they find y while searching for X? As long as they have a valid search warrent for X which places them in a position to find Y, Y is then admissible in court under the “plain view” doctine.
As to photographing the people in the bar, my thoughts here are the the officers can justifiy this as “part of the investigation”. That is these people were “witnesses” to what the parolee was doing that night and possibly the photographs are be used as evidence at a late parole violation hearing for this parolee ( as previous stated by some one, parolees cannot associated with certian people).
Lastly, the police are not obligate to arrest the parolee at the time of their investigation, ie at the bar that night, even if he is in violation of his parole. As i stated above, this “raid” could be just one more step in thier investigation of this man.
Anyway that’s my opinion, did i answer all the questions? MZ