We’ve all seen police or court shows
where the officer goes to the judge’s home, interrupting dinner or a card game,
to have a search warrant signed. Well,
that does, in fact, happen in real life.
Only it’s usually not dinner or a card game that’s disturbed – it’s
usually sleep that’s interrupted.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution
provides “The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
To obtain a search warrant, an officer must complete an
affidavit in which he/she swears to the facts which will support probable cause
to disturb a person’s home, etc., to search for evidence of a crime. This is then presented to a judge, who
administers an oath something like “Do you swear the information contained in
this application for search warrant is true, to the best of your knowledge and
belief?” The judge then reviews the
application and if probable cause if found, authorizes the search warrant.
The judge also has to determine whether it is necessary
to execute the search warrant during the nighttime hours and also if a “no
knock” (unannounced entry) is required for officer safety.
The officers then take the warrant and search the
home/car/building/person described. They
must inventory any evidence seized, leaving a copy of the inventory with the
suspect and filing the original in Court.
Most of the search warrants I have done involve looking
for drugs. It’s very interesting to see
a law enforcement officer who is working undercover – they often look as scruffy
as those we see on the TV shows. On the
other hand, some of the saddest search warrants I’ve reviewed involve the
seizure of a computer to look for child pornography.
While I didn’t issue this warrant, I have seen a warrant
authorizing the placement of a GPS monitoring system on the truck of a person
suspected of stealing copper wire. I saw
that warrant in a case where the suspect had been charged with, you guessed it,
stealing copper wire.
The test of a judge’s ability in reviewing and signing
search warrants comes when a suspect is arrested and charged, and his attorney
makes a motion to suppress (that is, “don’t let the jury see”) the evidence
seized by the warrant because there was no probable cause, or the judge has
made another mistake.
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Next Week: Jury
Duty
