Search & Seizure - Premises Flashcards
Officers, who had probable cause but no warrant to arrest Oaxaca, saw him standing in his open garage, which was attached to his house. Is it legal for officers to walk into the garage through the open door w/o consent, a warrant, or exigent circs?
It was illegal for the officers to walk into the garage through its open door without a warrant, consent, or exigent circumstances. “Simply put, a person’s garage is as much a part of his castle as the rest of his home.”
Defendant, who was camping on a public preserve without a permit, had been evicted recently from at least four other campsites in the preserve. After he was arrested for threatening a public official via emails he sent to the Department of Defense, his tent and possessions were searched. Was the search lawful?
The search was lawful. “Defendant was not in a position to legitimately consider the campsite–or the belongings kept there–as a place society recognized as private to him.”
Is it lawful for officers to a enter private driveway through two unlocked gates to check out why a man was stripping copper wire from an air conditioning unit?
It is lawful.
An officer went through an unlocked gate in a chain-link fence to talk to the occupant/suspect who was standing in the front yard about 75 feet from the gate. Up close, the officer could see the suspect was under the influence of an opiate. Did the suspect have reasonable expectation of privacy in his front yard under these circumstances?
The court held that the suspect had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his front yard, despite the fence, because the fence was more for “discouraging dogs, children, handbill deliverymen and others from walking across the front lawn and flower beds,” than it was for “excluding the public.”
The result probably would have been different had there been “a locked gate, a high solid fence blocking the front yard from view, a written notice to keep out or ‘beware of dog,’ or perhaps a doorbell at the front gate, . . . warning that the visitor was unwelcome.”
Officer went to a house to investigate a malicious mischief matter. Seeing no one inside the house, he walked into the fenced back yard through a closed, posted but unlocked gate and found illegal marijuana. Was this a legal entry?
The warrantless entry was illegal.
Following a tip from an informant that an armed and dangerous parolee at large was staying with defendant, officers went to the residence to serve a parole arrest warrant. One officer opened a gate off the driveway, walked through the back yard, and knocked on the rear door. Everyone except the parolee ran toward the front door. The police ordered everyone out, and defendant eventually consented to a search for the parolee. Contraband was observed in plain view during the search.
The technical trespass into the back yard was not controlling. The exigent circumstances, which included the need to apprehend an absconding armed parolee hiding in a home in a residential neighborhood, “strongly outweighed the marginal relevant impact of the trespass.”
Officers were trying to locate a resident regarding a domestic disturbance earlier that day. They believed he was home (warm car hood and light on in garage), but he was not responding to their knocking and requests. One officer went to the side yard gate, raised himself three inches on his tip toes, and shone his flashlight into the back yard. He saw a cocked revolver and could not tell if the gun was loaded. Was this a lawful search? Can the officer enter the property?
The officer lawfully entered the back yard to seize the revolver to protect himself and the seven-year-old child who lived in the residence.
Did officers violate defendant’s privacy by observing marijuana plants growing in his fenced back yard because they were plainly visible from the adjacent, higher property.
No. Officers may have been trespassing on the adjacent property (i.e., were there without permission), BUT because the plants were plainly visible from the adjacent, higher property, the search was legal
Responding to an anonymous tip concerning narcotics activity at a certain residence, officers drove down an alley and observed a man standing in the rear yard of the residence. One officer recognized him from an earlier arrest and knew he did not live there. Upon seeing the officers, the man backed away. The officers got out of their car and “hopped over” a three-and-a-half-foot chain-link fence to detain the man. They discovered contraband in a nearby chicken coop. Was the warrantless entry legal?
The warrantless entry into the fenced yard was legal.
From a planter area 18 inches from a window, an officer peeked through a narrow gap in a defective portion of a closed Venetian blind to investigate suspicious after-hours activity in a business establishment and saw criminal activity.
Was the evidence allowed or suppressed?
The evidence was suppressed.
Even if you are standing in a “public” place, your observations will probably be ruled illegal if you have to peek through a hole or small area, for example, a small gap in a blind. Your observations would be lawful if justified by an exigency.
In the course of a narcotics investigation, officers climbed over the wrought-iron fence surrounding a large, gated apartment complex and proceeded to a carport where they observed contraband.
There was no trespass, and even if there was, it was “a simple trespass [which] would not invalidate their subsequent observations.”
Dillon’s neighbor called police and said that Dillon was growing marijuana in his back yard, which had a fence around it. An officer responded and viewed the marijuana from the neighbor’s second-story window (40 feet away). Was the viewing legal?
The court ruled that this viewing was proper, but emphasized that “[t]he view of the back yard was vulnerable to observation by any of the petitioner’s neighbors, in essence, open to public view.”
Police, acting on an anonymous tip, went out to the suspect’s property, walked past his house, went around a locked gate posted with “no trespassing” signs, and walked over a mile onto his private property to find a secluded parcel of marijuana that could not be seen from anywhere else. Was this a legal search?
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld all these actions as involving only “open fields.” The fact that the officers committed a technical trespass also made no difference.
Was it legal for officers to trespass on defendant’s land late at night, walk through his forest, climb over his wire fence, and look through large openings in a 12’ high wooden fence into greenhouses through their open doors.
Yes… it was legal
Was it legal for police, without consent, exigent circumstances, or a warrant, to go past a receptionist and enter the locked office of an attorney to arrest him for selling cocaine.
NO. It was illegal for police
Two police officers walking down the hallway of a hotel, seeking a man they had seen drinking in front, passed by a room with the door partially open. Inside, on a table just a few feet away, one officer saw some plastic, a knife and a razor, and a woman sitting on the bed counting out tinfoil bindles. He pushed open the door and entered and, after opening one of the bindles, arrested the woman. Was the warrantless entry legal?
The warrantless entry was legal due to exigency.
Following a tip from an informant that an armed and dangerous parolee at large was staying with defendant, officers went to the residence to serve a parole arrest warrant. One officer opened a gate off the driveway, walked through the back yard, and knocked on the rear door. Everyone except the parolee ran toward the front door. The police ordered everyone out, and defendant eventually consented to a search for the parolee. Contraband was observed in plain view during the search. Was the contraband lawfully seized?
The technical trespass into the back yard was not controlling. The exigent circumstances, which included the need to apprehend an absconding armed parolee hiding in a home in a residential neighborhood, “strongly outweighed the marginal relevant impact of the trespass.”
