Warrant Exceptions

Question 1

Exception Categories

Answer 1

(1) Exigent circumstances,
(2) plain view,
(3) auto searches,
(4) searches incident to arrest,
(5) inventory searches,
(6) protective sweeps,
(7) searches with consent,
(8) special needs searches,
(9) searches of those on probation and parole.

Question 2

Exigent Cirmcumstances

Answer 2

Officers must have a reasonable belief that the exigency is occurring (must reasonably believe the suspect is running away from them, must reasonable belief evidence is being destroyed, must reasonably believe that there is an emergency). In short, there’s an objective criterion to the exigent circumstance exception to the warrant requirement.

Question 3

Hayden (Hot Pursuit)

Answer 3

Police may enter a house when they are in “hot pursuit” of a suspected felon.

Addendum: Nonetheless, the search of the house is limited to a search for the suspect and for weapons (used in the robbery, or which might be used against the officers). The search and seizure is limited to the exception that justifies it.

Question 4

Payton

Answer 4

(simple form) You need a warrant to arrest somebody in their house or place of residence. (longer form) Absent exigent circumstances, and absent consent, a warrantless entry into the home for the purposes of arresting a resident of the house is unconstitutional.

Question 5

Brigham City (Injury/Threat of Injury)

Answer 5

Police may enter the home without a warrant when they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury.

Question 6

Kentucky v. King (Preventing Destruction of Evidence)

Answer 6

A warrantless entry to prevent the destruction of evidence is allowed where police do not create the exigency through actual or threatened Fourth Amendment violation.

Addendum: In general, a warrantless entry to prevent destruction of evidence.

Question 7

Welsch (Drunk Driver Returns Home)

Answer 7

The warrantless, nighttime entry of petitioner’s home to arrest him for a civil, non-jailable traffic offense, was prohibited by the special protection afforded the individual in his home by the Fourth Amendment. (No exigent circumstance).

Question 8

Missouri v. McNeely

Answer 8

The natural metabolization of alcohol in the blood does not in every case create an exigent circumstance based on the destruction of evidence.

Question 9

Plain View Doctrine

Answer 9

Plain view is a doctrine about what may be seized, not only about what may be searched. We already had a version of plain view in our early cases: seeing something in plain view is not a search. This doctrine adds to that point and says, if you see contraband in plain view, you may also lawfully seize it (provided you have a right to be where you are).

Question 10

Coolidge (Plain View)

Answer 10

Officers can seize an object in plain view if (a) they are lawfully in the area where the evidence can be seen and may be seized, (b) the incriminating nature of the object is immediately apparent (must have probable cause to believe that item is evidence of a crime or contraband).

Question 11

Dickerson (Plain Touch Doctrine)

Answer 11

Officers may make a warrantless seizure of items they discover during a Terry frisk. But as with a plain view seizure, the incriminating character of the item must be immediately apparent.

Question 12

Carney (Automobile Exception)

Answer 12

You don’t need a warrant to search a car (or other mobile conveyance), if you have probable cause to believe that there’s evidence of a crime in the car (or other mobile conveyance).

Question 13

Acevedo (Container in the Car)

Answer 13

If you have probable cause to search a container, and that container is in a vehicle, you can search the vehicle and if you find the container, you can open it up and inspect it. Note that the probable cause still only applies to the container; it does not justify a search of the whole vehicle.

Question 14

Chimel (Search incident to arrest)

Answer 14

A police officer who makes a lawful full custodial arrest may conduct a contemporaneous warrantless search of the arrestee’s person and the area within the arestee’s immediate control.

Question 15

Knowles (Search incident to arrest)

Answer 15

Must actually be an arrest (not a citation)

Question 16

Robinson (Search incident to arrest)

Answer 16

Officers may search an arrestee incident to a lawful arrest even though they have no reason to believe that weapons or criminal evidence will be found on him.

Question 17

Gant (Search incident to arrest/w vehicle)

Answer 17

Police are not authorized to do a vehicle search incident to an arrest after the arrestee has been secured and cannot access the interior of the vehicle

However, if officers have reason to believe that the car contains evidence OF THE CRIME OF THE ARREST they can search the vehicle (aka. no searches for excessive speeding, yes searches for DUI).

Question 18

Riley (Cell Phones Incident to arrest)

Answer 18

Chimel rationales (officer safety and destruction of evidence) do not apply to searching a cell phone in searches incident to arrest

Question 19

SD v. Opperman (Inventory Searches)

Answer 19

Inventory searches of a vehicle, provided they are not motivated by an investigatory motive and motivated instead by a desire to secure or protect the car (“caretaking function”), are permissible but they must follow a standard procedure.

Rationales offered:

(1) protection of person’s property,
(2) protection of police against charges of theft,
(3) protection of police from potential danger.

Question 20

Illinois v. Lafayette (Inventory Searches)

Answer 20

Police can search any property in possession of the arrestee as a part of a routine inventory search.

Question 21

Maryland v. Buie (Protective Sweep)

Answer 21

After an arrest, the police may make a sweep of the premises, limited to a cursory visual inspection of those places in which a person might be hiding. The police do not need probable cause or reasonable suspicion to look in closets and other spaces immediately adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack could be launched. However, there must be articulable facts, taken together with inferences from those facts, would warrant a reasonably prudent officer in believe that the area to be swept harbors an individual posing a danger to those on the scene.

Question 22

Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (Consent)

Answer 22

Consent to a search is determined by the totality of the circumstances. The state does not have the burden of showing that the defendant was aware he could refuse consent, but it does have the burden of proving voluntariness.

Consent to a search can be limited (“you can search that room, but not anywhere else”; “you can search the car, but don’t touch the glove compartment”), and you can also withdraw consent.

Question 23

Georgia v. Randolf (disputed consent)

Answer 23

When there is disputed consent at the place where the police wish to enter, then there is no consent. The objecting individual wins.

Question 24

Illinois v. Rodriguez (actual consent authority)

Answer 24

A person can give consent to search a place where she actually has authority to give consent because she has the authority by herself or jointly with another person, or when the police reasonably believe she has such authority.

Question 25

Fernandez v. California (Objecting Occupant leaves - consent)

Answer 25

If police wait until the objecting occupant leaves or is removed due to a lawful detention or arrest, and they gain consent of the remaining occupant, they can search the premises pursuant to that consent.

Question 26

Special Needs Searches

Answer 26

These are searches that are not part of an ongoing criminal investigation (that is, they are not in pursuits of a suspect, or of evidence). They are often not even conducted by police officers, and they serve (sometimes) non-criminal law enforcement goals.

Question 27

Camara (Administrative Search - special needs)

Answer 27

Administrative searches of houses are searches, and require a warrant (especially when the tenant refuses), but the warrant can be to search a municipal area rather than a particular dwelling. Moreover, the probable cause inquiry should focus on the legislative or administrative standards for conducting an area inspection and be based on nothing more specific than the passage of time, the nature of the building, and the condition of the entire area.

Question 28

Burger (closely regulated commercial industries - special needs)

Answer 28

Closely regulated commercial industries have a history of government oversight, that they enjoy a lower expectation of privacy. Accordingly, the requirements of a warrant and probable cause are relaxed, and more searches of these industries will be found to be “reasonable.”

1) There must be a substantial government interest that informs the regulatory scheme that informs the investigation
2) The warrantless inspections must be necessary to further that interest
3) The inspection program must be an adequate replacement for a warrant (e.g., it must make sure the search is guided by law, and is limited in scope).

Question 29

Flores-Montano (@ Border - Special Needs)

Answer 29

Searches at the border can be done even without probable cause or reasonable suspicion.

Question 30

Ramsey (Mail Entering Country @ customs)

Answer 30

Customs officials can search international mail without a warrant and even without reasonable cause to suspect any particular piece of mail.

Question 31

Montoya-Hernandez (Cocaine Mule - Detention @ border)

Answer 31

Detention of a traveler at the border, beyond the scope of a routine customs search and inspection, is justified at its inception if customs agents, considering all the facts surrounding the traveler and her trip, reasonably suspect that the traveler is smuggling contraband in her alimentary canal.

Question 32

Martinez-Fuerte (Border Checkpoints)

Answer 32

Vehicle occupants may be stopped at fixed checkpoints, and briefly detained for questioning about their citizenship status, without individualized suspicion of wrongdoing.

Question 33

Sitz (Checkpoints)

Answer 33

A state program establishing a sobriety checkpoint is permissible, because the intrusion is minor compared to the state’s interest in preventing accidents caused by drunk drivers.

In other words, we’re looking at

(1) how great the danger is (that the state is trying to stop),
(2) how effective the means the state uses are, and
(3) how intrusive the measure is.

This is a balancing test that is familiar throughout special needs searches.

This applies to the initial stop. If the cops want to detain you longer, then a more individualized suspicion is required.

Question 34

Indy v. Edmund (Drug Checkpoint)

Answer 34

A checkpoint set up for the purpose of combating “ordinary criminal wrongdoing” is impermissible.

Question 35

Special Needs Balancing Test

Answer 35

(1) how great the danger is (that the state is trying to stop),
(2) how effective the means the state uses are, and
(3) how intrusive the measure is.

Question 36

Redding (Balancing Test Is Necessary for School Searches)

Answer 36

A school search is permissible when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.

Question 37

Veronia (Drug Testing in Schools)

Answer 37

Schools are a “special needs” context, and a balancing test is used to determine whether there is a Fourth Amendment violation.

Question 38

Bd. of Ed. v. Earls

Answer 38

Policy to test all students who participate in competitive extracurricular activities for drugs is Constitutional.

Question 39

Ferg v. City of Charleston (Drug Testing Pregnant Mothers)

Answer 39

Hospital testing for drug use by pregnant mothers does not fit into the Court’s “special needs” jurisprudence, because it is used to obtain evidence of a patient’s criminal activity for use by law enforcement officials.

Question 40

Florence (prison searches - rule of thumb to defer to correctional officials)

Answer 40

A regulation impinging on an inmate’s constitutional rights must be upheld if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.

Deterring the possession of contraband is one of these legitimate interests and a strip search is reasonably related to this interest, and even strip searches of those arrested for minor offenses.

Question 41

Knights (Probationer Searches)

Answer 41

On balancing of the interests—the special needs test—searches of a probationer’s house are justified, even without a warrant, so long as there is reasonable suspicion.

Question 42

Sampson (Parole Searches)

Answer 42

The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit police from conducting a warrantless search of a person who was subject to a parole search condition, where there was no suspicion of criminal wrongdoing and the sole reason for the search was because the person was on parole.

Question 43

Maryland v. King

Answer 43

“When officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold for a serious offense and bring the suspect to the station to be detained in custody, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”

Rationales: 1) Special needs, 2) Search incident to arrest (lower expectation of privacy – with a nod also to the doctrine governing probationers and parolees), and 3) some elements of inventory exception.