The Fourth Amendment protects persons against unreasonable searches and seizures. Police deal with search and seizure incidents on a daily basis; unfortunately, numerous mistakes are made and lawsuits result from this type of citizen interaction. One way to prevent an unnecessary lawsuit is to get a search warrant. What if that is not applicable to your situation? There are several search warrant exceptions that may be applied to most investigative incidents.
Memorizing the acronym BACH PIES may help keep you, as law enforcement personnel, from defending your actions in court.
Border
Automobile
Consent
Hot Pursuit
Plain View
Incident to Arrest
Exigent Circumstances
Stop-and-Frisk
The first exception involves border searches. They pertain to searches of persons and property at America’s
…show more content…
How many times have you seen a driver give the investigating officer consent to search their vehicle and the officer puts the driver in the back of a police car (for everyone’s safety) with the windows rolled up? How can the officer hear the driver retract their consent? Most second year law students could argue that case in court and probably win. Hot pursuit allows any officer to enter dwellings or structures that a suspect runs into, as long as the pursuit is fresh-keeping a constant visual of the suspect. For officer safety reasons, I do not recommend chasing suspect(s) into unfamiliar structures without back-up. Even then, that is an individual judgment call. Plain view is another search warrant exception with specific requirements. The officer must have a legal right to view the evidence and immediately recognize it as contraband. Also, the item in question cannot be moved or manipulated. The notion of plain feel and smell also fall within the realms of the plain view