Can Police Search Door-to-Door Without Warrants? By Aditi Mukherji on April 19, 2013 5:20 PMHeavily armed SWAT teams combed through homes near Boston on Friday in a massive manhunt for one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.
But what allows police to search door-to-door for a suspect on the loose without a warrant?
Hours after the FBI released photos and videos of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother Dzhokhar, 19, clashes between the suspects and police began, the AP reports.
Tamerlan was killed overnight, but his brother remained on the loose Friday afternoon. Officers went door-to-door in several neighborhoods, looking for Dzhokhar.
Generally speaking, the Fourth Amendment protects residents' privacy by typically requiring police to knock and announce their presence before they can enter people's homes, and get a search warrant before they can conduct a search.
But there's an exception for situations in which there isn't time to get a warrant because of an ongoing emergency. When there are exigent circumstances (emphasis not in original,) or emergency situations, police can lawfully enter, search, or seize a resident's property without a warrant.
The exigent circumstance exception exists for the sake of public safety. Often seen on the show "Cops," the classic exigent situation is when the police are in "hot pursuit" of an escaping suspect who is tracked to a private home.
But another example of an exigent circumstance is when further harm or injury could occur in the time it would take to get a warrant. The exception applies to this case, since Dzhokhar is believed to be armed and dangerous, the AP reports. It's entirely possible that he's planning to cause further injury to people.
Officers are also allowed to enter a home without a warrant to help an occupant in an emergency. That means it would be OK for police to enter a house to apprehend Dzhokhar and help a resident who is possibly being held hostage. In such a situation, the police can also do a protective sweep of a house for weapons and other evidence.
One final note about warrantless door-to-door searches: If police do search your home in an emergency, the "plain view" doctrine generally applies. That means officers can seize any contraband they see in, well, plain view -- and that evidence can then be used against you in court.
Indeed every action taken by the LEO's in Boston/Watertown were covered by law. In other words, no one suffered a great loss of their rights as citizens of this nation. Indeed though, I would say that many lost a lot of time and suffered great aggravation.
Now, in addition, in some cases damages done to private property by LEO's in that search are payable to various citizens, and some home and property owners - and we as taxpayers will most likely foot the bill.
There is one guy that deserves a large cash reward - the boat owner.
I do not agree that these exceptions apply to Boston's situation. Unless the police had reason to believe that a specific home was endangered, they needed a warrant. Searching my home when I refuse permission does not fall under the emergency exception unless they have reason to believe that the terrorist is in my home, or that we are in danger of a specific harm if they wait for a warrant (thermal images, tracking dogs, or some other indication that my home faces a unique and individual risk). The police do not have authority to search every home in Boston simply because there is an armed and dangerous criminal in Boston; they need something more, something specific to the home to be searched without a warrant. Otherwise the Bill of Rights is dead, and we have moved to a world where the law is whatever those in power say it is, in other words, a world without law.
I call BS on this uninformed Police State Apologetics!
The U.S. Supreme Court makes it clear that if officers knock or bang on a door and announce their presence and then become aware of sounds indicating the likelihood that evidence is in the process of being destroyed, those officers may enter the home without a warrant to prevent the destruction of such evidence. What is not permissible, however, is for law enforcement officers to bang on a door and immediately demand entrance to a home and threaten to break down the door if such entrance is not granted. The U.S. Supreme Court stated unequivocally that if law enforcement officers behave in this manner, it will constitute an actual or threatened violation of Fourth Amendment rights and is therefore impermissible
In other words, no one suffered a great loss of their rights as citizens of this nation.
I respectfully disagree.
we'll see a pretty short hop from dragnetting a neighborhood due to a 'bomber on the loose' to the everyday run of the mill gangbanger being reportedly hiding out, and he may or may not be prepared to kill another homey...
anybody with two functioning brain cells can watch the watertown vids and see a police state on roids...
matter of fact, not long ago i ran across what i thought was a 'sobriety' or 'insurance' or any number of other 'safety' checkpoints...during the stop, the asshole that was following orders had, his as number one priority, to simply take the liscence and run my name against a list of names dropped by an informant, in an investigation of a drug related murder...found that out the next day from a co-worker of Mrs G who lives in that town...
long story short, they simply did their *enforcement* by stopping the entire population and checking them vs a list...
and this was in rural Ky...and yeah, i damned near ended up in jail that night for being uppity about the stop...
the classic exigent situation is when the police are in “hot pursuit” of an escaping suspect who is tracked to a private home.
But another example of an exigent circumstance is when further harm or injury could occur in the time it would take to get a warrant. The exception applies to this case, since Dzhokhar is believed to be armed and dangerous, the AP reports. It’s entirely possible that he’s planning to cause further injury to people.
“But another example of an exigent circumstance is when further harm or injury could occur in the time it would take to get a warrant. The exception applies to this case, since Dzhokhar is believed to be armed and dangerous, the AP reports. It’s entirely possible that he’s planning to cause further injury to people.”
No, sorry, this exception does not apply. The police still need to have some reasonable suspicion that the suspect they are searching for is in the home they want to search without a warrant. They cannot use “exigent circumstance” to blanketly search an entire neighborhood full of homes, when they know that they won’t find the suspect in 99.9% of them, no matter how dangerous the suspect is.