There has been an arrest which may be linked to the DC sniper case. A man was arrested in his car on a federal weapons charge. However, the Washington Post reports that
If they arrest someone on a weapons charge while in his car, wouldn’t you think they would have probable cause to search the car? Why is this stalled out waiting for a warrant?
Just a guess.
A warrent states that you may search and is signed by a judge. Probable cause says you may search, but is perhaps not as authorative as a warrent.
Don’t want to have any evidence thrown out. And the cars not going anywhere.
IANAL and other standard disclaimers.
As I recall, the cops (or FBI in this case) have to show probable cause to a judge to obtain a search warrant. The warrant has to specify who / what / where is to be searched, and who / what is being searched for.
But there are exceptions, extensions, and weakenings…
Cops generally can search a car during a traffic stop based only on probable cause without first getting a warrant, as that might be their only chance to examine the car. In the case at hand, though, GaryM has noted that the car isn’t going anywhere.
And then there’s the ongoing issues of can the cops conduct a search without the warrant actually being there? What if the warrant is wrong? What if the cops goof during their search? Or discover something else (e.g. have a warrant to search for guns, find narcotics)?
Of course, in other countries (especially non-Western societies), YMMV.
In general, the police need a warrant to execute any search. According to the 4th Amendment, the cops are only entitled to a warrant when they have probable cause, so just having the PC is step one – then and only then is it time to call up the judge and get him to sign the warrant.
There is a pretty major exception to the warrante requirement, though. If I recall my Criminal Procedure class correctly, the cops typically can search a car without a warrant as long as they have PC. Therefore, they probably could search this car without a warrant. However, since this car isn’t going anywhere, there’s no reason to risk it – why not just hang back an hour or so, wait for the signature, and then tear the car apart? That way, there’s no risk of having evidence thrown out on any ground.
–Cliffy
The courts consider all searches without a search warrant to be per se illegal. However, certain exceptions to the warrant requirement are allowed:
Exigent circumstances: An emergency exists (such as danger to life or property, or evidence will be destroyed) so that waiting for a warrant would be impractical. The officers must not intentionally create the exigent situation (such as knocking on the door and yelling police, then kicking the door when they hear the toilet flushing).
Incident to arrest: When a person is arrested, their person and the immediate area can be searched for weapons and evidence. If they are arrested out of a car, the car can be searched (the Feds and most state officers can search the entire car. In my state of Washington, we can’t search locked compartments, the trunk, or items we know don’t belong to the arrested person).
Open View/Plain View: If an officer sees evidence while legally in a position to see it, he can seize it. So if an officer standing at your front door can see your pot plant growing in the livingroom, he can take it.
Protective search: An officer who has reasonable cause to worry about being assaulted may search a person or the immediate area for weapons. This can only be for weapons, but if he legitimately finds something while doing so, it can be seized.
A search conducted with a search warrant is presumed to be a reasonable search. A search conducted without a warrant is presumed to be unreasonable. At trial, a search with a warrant is harder for the defense to attack, whereas a warrantless search is easier to attack. Since the car isn’t going anywhere, convincing a judge to allow a search now will make any prosecution using the search easier.
If there’s nothing lost by waiting for a warrant, why risk having the evidence thrown out because of some procedural impropriety? It was only something like an hour of delay to get the paper on hand. They would probably be justified in some kind of search of the car immediately (especially of the passenger area), but there’s no reason to jeopordize the whole case just to search the car a little earlier.
My guess is the feds watched a few episodes of L&O and saw how many times McCoy’s key evidence got tossed because the cops pointlessly did an immediate search instead of waiting to get an easy warrant. 