Exceptions to Warrant Requirements

Question 1

Exceptions to Warrants

Answer 1

E - Exigent Circumstances
S - Search incident to arrest 
C - Consent
A - Automobile 
P - Plain View
I - Inventory 
S - Special Needs
T - Terry "Stop and Frisk"

Question 2

Exigent Circumstances Exception

Answer 2

Three types:

1. Evanescent Evidence - Evidence would dissipate or disappear (Ex. Scraping under fingernails)
2. Hot pursuit of fleeing felon
3. “Emergency Aid” Exception

Question 3

Search Incident to Arrest Exception

Answer 3

1. Arrest must be lawful
2. Justifications:
   - Officer safety, and
   - the need to preserve evidence
3. *Timing: The search must be contemporaneous in time and place with the arrest
4. Geographic scope: the wingspan, which includes the body, clothing and any containers within the arrestee’s immediate control without regard to the arrest was made.

Question 4

Automobile searched incident to a custodial arrest

Answer 4

Search of automobile incident to a custodial arrest:

1. Permissible Scope: Interior cabin including closed containers but not in the trunk.
2. Secured vs. Unsecured Arrestee” Once an officer has “secured” an arrestee, the officer can search the vehicle ONLY IF she has reason to believe it will contain evidence relating to the crime for which the arrest was made.

Question 5

Consent exception

Answer 5

Standard: Consent must be VOLUNTARY AND INTELLIGENT

Scope: An officer’s consent to search extends to all areas for which a reasonable officer would believe permission to search was granted.

*Apparent Authority - Still okay for consent - Provided officer reasonably believed that the consenting party had “actual authority”

Question 6

Automobile Exception

Answer 6

Standard: Police officers need PC to believe that contraband or evidence of crime will be found in the vehicle.
Scope: The entire car and they may open ANY package, luggage, or other container that may reasonably contain the item(s) for which there was PC to search.

• Traffice Stop - Search can be lawful so long as PC acquired before the search.
  ex. Drug dog alerts to smell of drugs

Question 7

3 Requirements for Plain View Exception

Answer 7

1. Lawful access to the place from which the item can be seen,
2. Lawful access to the item itself, and
3. The criminality of the item must be immediately apparent

Question 8

Inventory Exception

Answer 8

Inventory searches most commonly occur in 2 contexts:

1. Arrestees: When booked into jail
2. Vehicles: when they’re impounded

Question 9

Special Needs Exception

Answer 9

1. *Random Drug Testing: Railroad employees following impact accident; Customs agents in drug interdiction; Public school children in any extracurricular activity, Railroad Employees following an impact accident
2. Government employee’s desks and files - work related misconduct
3. Student’s “effects” in public schools - violations of school rules
4. Border searches - no privacy with respect to border searches of persons and effects
5. Parolees- warrantless search of parolee and his home ok if a state statute provides that it is a condition of parole.
   - Parolee has diminished expectation of privacy

Question 10

Terry Stop

Answer 10

It is a brief detention of “seizure” for the purpose of investigating suspicious conduct.

*Can take place anywhere

Question 11

Terry Frisk

Answer 11

It is a pat-down of the body and outer clothing for weapons that is justified by an officer’s belief that a suspect is armed and dangerous.

• If an officer finds a weapon, it can always be seized
• If the officer instead finds something she recognizes as contraband without manipulating the object, she can seize it as well.

Question 12

Hot Pursuit of Fleeing Felon Exception

Answer 12

1. Hot pursuits allows police to enter a suspect’s home or that of a 3rd party to search for a fleeing felon.
2. Any evidence in plain view while searching for suspect is admissible

Question 13

Emergency Aid

Answer 13

Police can enter without warrant if there is an objectively reasonable basis for believing that a person inside is in need of emergency aid to address or prevent injury

Question 14

Consent of Shared Premises

Answer 14

(1) When adults share residence any resident can consent to a search of common areas within it
(2) However, if they disagree regarding consent to search common areas, the objecting party prevails as to areas which they share dominion and control

Question 15

3 Requirements for Inventory Searches to be Constitutional

Answer 15

1. Regulations governing them are reasonable in scope
2. The search itself complies with those regulations
3. The search is conducted in good faith, motivated solely by the need

Question 16

Evaluating if suspect has been seized during questioning for Terry issue (Didn’t fell free to leave or feel able to decline officer’s requests to answer questions)

Answer 16

1. Whether an officer brandishes a weapon
2. The officer’s tone and demeanor when interacting with the person questioned, and
3. Whether the individual was told she had the right to refuse consent

*** In pursuit by a police officer - not seized until he submits to the officer’s authority by stopping or if the officer physically restrains him.

Question 17

Evidentiary Standard in Terry Stops

Answer 17

• Reasonable suspicion
• Requires specific and articulable facts that inform an officer’s belief that criminal activity is present
• Subjective intent irrelevant - 4th amd. concerned solely with its objective reasonableness

Question 18

Evidentiary Standard in Terry Frisks

Answer 18

• Requires specific and articulable facts that sugges tat a suspect is armed and dangerous
• *** A Terry frisk is justified by a concern for officer safety ONLY. Not a general search for criminal evidence.
• Informant tip enough to create reasonable suspicion

Question 19

Evidentiary Standard for Protective Sweeps When Making an In-Home Arrest

Answer 19

1. Officers have authority, w/out PC or RS, to look in areas adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack could be immediately launched
2. To justify a sweep of more remote areas, the arresting officer must have additional facts sufficient to allow a reasonably prudent person to conclude that an individual who may present threat is in the area being swept

Question 20

Admitting Tainted Fruit

Answer 20

Must show a break in causal link between the original illegality and the criminal evidence that is later discovered. Can be accomplished by:
1. Independent Source Doctrine
2. Inevitable Discovery Doctrine
3. Attenuation
ex. D is illegally arrested of Fri, released on bail
on Sat, returns on Tuesday and confesses.
This is admissible.