The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the right of every American against unreasonable searches or seizures without probable cause. However, the police do not always respect people’s rights, resulting in an illegal search or seizure of your person or property. Here are five ways law enforcement might perform an illegal search against you:
- Search conducted without a warrant
- A warrant is not always needed for every search by law enforcement, but in many cases (such as when conducting a search of a residence) it is generally required. However, police will often try to get around needing to obtain a warrant whenever possible, particularly if they feel a case is particularly time sensitive. As a result, some police will try to improperly carry out a search without a warrant, violating a victim’s Fourth Amendment rights in the process.
- Warrant is improperly executed
- Even when a police officer has a warrant to conduct a search, that does not mean they carry out the warrant correctly. For example, they may overreach the scope of the warrant by searching further than they are supposed to (such as by searching your home when they are only authorized to search your car), or they may confiscate items that have nothing to do with the crime you are alleged to have committed.
- Warrant is based on faulty evidence
- Sometimes, the issue with a warrant is that it is based on bad evidence. Every warrant is meant to be backed by evidence explaining why there is probable cause for a search or seizure. If that evidence turns out to be incorrect, incomplete, or misleading, the search itself may turn out to be illegal.
- Search is conducted on incorrect person or residence
- A surprisingly common mistake occurs when police have a valid warrant, but carry it out on the wrong person or residence. This is an especially common issue in apartments, where they may misread the room number, but it can happen to anyone. All it takes is for the police to misread a street or room number and you may become the unfortunate victim of an illegal search.
- Search conducted without probable cause
- Finally, there is the chance that a search was entirely baseless, with no real evidence to back it up. Regardless of whether there is a warrant or not, the police must be able to show that a search was backed by probable cause, or at least was reasonable under the circumstances. Otherwise, it may be considered an illegal search and any evidence found as a result of the search may be disallowed from being used in court.
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