General warrant

“ The Court ordered it returned on the ground that the warrant was a general warrant. Id. In the course of its opinion, the Court held that: the constitutional requirement that warrants must particularly describe the "things to be seized" is to be accorded the most scrupulous exactitude when the "things" are books, and the basis for their seizure is the ideas they contain.
225 Id. at 485, 85 S.Ct. at 511-512 (emphasis added) . Thus, the particularity of a warrant must meet the scrupulous exactitude test when the items to be seized are books, and they are sought for the ideas they contain. ”

“ The result is that a warrant for arrest is the equivalent of a general search warrant or writ of assistance; as an 'incident' to the arrest, the arresting officers can search the surrounding premises without limitation for the fruits, instrumentalities and anything else connected with the crime charged or with any other possible crime. They may disregard with impunity all the historic principles underlying the Fourth Amendment relative to indiscriminate searches of a man's home when he is placed under arrest. ”

“ That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted. ”

“ They reflect the determination of those who wrote the Bill of Rights that the people of this new Nation should forever 'be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects' from intrusion and seizure by officers acting under the unbridled authority of a general warrant. ”

“ The majority confuses the historically justified right of the police to seize visible evidence of the crime in open view at the scene of arrest with the 'plain view' exception to the requirement of particular description in search warrants. The majority apparently reasons that unless the seizure made pursuant to authority conferred by a warrant is limited to the particularly described object of seizure, the warrant will become a general writ of assistance. ”

“ As a general rule, it has also required the judgment of a magistrate on the probable-cause issue and the issuance of a warrant before a search is made. Only in exigent circumstances will the judgment of the police as to probable cause serve as a sufficient authorization for a search. Carroll, supra, holds a search warrant unnecessary where there is probable cause to search an automobile stopped on the highway; the car is movable, the occupants are alerted, and the car's contents may never be found again if a warrant must be obtained. ”

“ Finally, defendants' allegation that those case-in-chief documents seized under Items 159-61 must be suppressed for lack of particularity is contrary to our holding that the warrant is sufficiently particularized. See p. 1257 supra.
[7] We recognize that in some cases a flagrant disregard for the limitations in a warrant might transform an otherwise valid search into a general one, thereby requiring the entire fruits of the search to be suppressed. See generally United States v. ”

“ The clear-cut issue before us is this: in making a lawful arrest, may arresting officers search without a search warrant not merely the person under arrest or things under his immediate physical control, but the premises where the arrest is made, although there was ample time to secure such a warrant and no danger that the 'papers and effects' for which a search warrant could be issued would be despoiled or destroyed? ”

“ To the extent dangers to arresting officers may be implicated in a particular way in a particular case, they are better addressed through consideration of case-specific exceptions to the warrant requirement, such as the one for exigent circumstances. ”

“ If the officer acts with probable cause, he is protected even though it turns out that the citizen is innocent. * * * And while a search without a warrant is, within limits, permissible if incident to a lawful arrest, if an arrest without a warrant is to support an incidental search, it must be made with probable cause. ”

“ Every warrant ought to specify the offence charged, the authority under which the arrest is to be made, the person who is to execute it and the person who is to be arrested. A warrant remains in force till executed or discharged by order of a court. An officer may break open doors in order to execute a warrant in cases of treason, felony or indictable offences, provided that, on demand, admittance cannot otherwise be obtained. ”

“ In the morning, an officer came with a regular warrant for arresting Antonio, on the charge of setting the corn-barn on fire. A warrant is a paper signed by a justice or judge, authorizing the officer to seize a prisoner, and to bring him before a magistrate, for what is called an examination. If, on the examination, the magistrate sees that the prisoner is clearly innocent, he releases him, and that is the end of the matter. ”

“ The only exceptions to the safeguard of a warrant issued by a magistrate are those which the common law recognized as inherent limitations of the policy which found expression in the Fourth Amendment-where circumstances preclude the obtaining of a warrant (as in the case of movable vehicles) , and where the warrant for the arrest of a person carries with it authority to seize all that is on the person, or is in such open and immediate physical relation to him as to be, in a fair sense, a projection of his person. ”

“ The possession of a legal warrant by a peace officer on arrest is of great importance in determining whether a person resisting apprehension is justified or not in his resistance. Should the officer attempt to apprehend him on a warrant manifestly illegal on its face, or without a warrant in a case where a warrant is necessary, and be killed in the attempt, the killing would probably be held to be manslaughter and not murder. ”

“ If the police see a crime being committed they can of course seize the culprit. If a person is fleeing the scene of a crime, the police can stop him. And there are the cases of 'hot pursuit' and other instances of probable cause when the police can make an arrest. But normally an arrest should be made only on a warrant issued by a magistrate on a showing of 'probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,' as required by the Fourth Amendment. ”

“ I. Search warrants are "normally drafted by nonlawyers in the midst and haste of a criminal investigation." United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 108, 13 L. Ed. 2d 684, 85 S.C.t. 741 (1965) . Consequently, they are to be read "in a commonsense and realistic fashion." Id. Here, the "commonsense and realistic" reading is that the issuing magistrate intended to authorize a search of all the occupants of the premises and that the warrant did so. Five points are important to keep in mind. ”

“ A warrant issued by a metropolitan police magistrate may be executed, without backing, by a metropolitan police officer anywhere, and there are certain other exceptions, but as a rule a warrant cannot be executed without being backed by a local magistrate. ”

“ If circumstances so often require the warrantless arrest that the law generally permits it, the typical situation will find the arresting officers lawfully on the premises without arrest or search warrant. Like the majority, I would permit the police to search the person of a suspect and the area under his immediate control either to assure the safety of the officers or to prevent the destruction of evidence. And like the majority, I see nothing in the arrest alone furnishing probable cause for a search of any broader scope. ”

“ When the indictment is found, or the information is filed, a warrant is issued for the arrest of the accused, to be brought before the court, unless he is at the time in custody, in which case an order for that purpose is made, to the end, in either case, that he may be arraigned, and plead to the indictment or information. ”

“ Any assumption that evidence sufficient to support a magistrate's disinterested determination to issue a search warrant will justify the officers in making a search without a warrant would reduce the Amendment to a nullity and leave the people's homes secure only in the discretion of police officers.' Pp. ”

“ By its own regulations, the United States Government has conceded that although an American warrant might be a "dead letter" in a foreign country, a warrant procedure in an American court plays a vital and indispensable role in circumscribing the discretion of agents of the Federal Government. ”

“ Justice WHITE that the police may, whenever they have probable cause, make a warrantless entry for the purpose a making an arrest, and that seizures and searches of automobiles are likewise per se reasonable given probable cause, then by the same logic any search or seizure could be carried out without a warrant, and we would simply have read the Fourth Amendment out of the Constitution. ”

“ J. Beale, Criminal Pleading and Practice §21, p. 20, and n. 7 (1899) (“By statute the power of peace officers to arrest without a warrant is often extended to all misdemeanors committed in their presence.” “Such a statute is constitutional”) ; 1 Bishop, supra, §183, at 103 (“ [T] he power of arrest extends, possibly, to any indictable wrong in [an officer’s] presence... . And statutes and ordinances widely permit these arrests for violations of municipal by-laws”) ”

“ Security against unlawful searches is more likely to be attained by resort to search warrants than by reliance upon the caution and sagacity of petty officers while acting under the excitement that attends the capture of persons accused of crime. * * *'↑ 'Belief, however well founded, that an article sought is concealed in a dwelling house, furnishes no justification for a search of that place without a warrant. ”

“ The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 allows the issue of search warrants where it is suspected that a female is unlawfully detained for immoral purposes. Execution of the decisions of a court of summary jurisdiction is secured by warrants, part of the process of the court, such as warrants of distress or commitment. A warrant may also issue for the apprehension of a witness whose attendance cannot be otherwise assured. ”

“ The warrant, if issued by a competent court as to a matter over which it has jurisdiction, becomes a judicial authority to the person who executes it, and resistance to such a warrant is a criminal offence. ”

“ The arrest warrant procedure serves to insure that the deliberate, impartial judgment of a judicial officer will be interposed between the citizen and the police, to assess the weight and credibility of the information which the complaining officer adduces as probable cause. ”

“ The statute, we think, makes it essential to the right to arrest the alleged fugitive under a warrant of the executive of the state where the alleged fugitive is found that such executive be furnished, before issuing his warrant, with a copy of an indictment or an affidavit before a magistrate in the demanding state, and charging the fugitive with crime committed by him in such state. ”

“ It is essential to justify such an arrest that the offense committed shall amount to a breach of the peace, that such offense shall have been actually committed or attempted in the presence of the person making the arrest, and that the arrest be made at the time when the offense was committed. No private person has the right to make an arrest for a misdemeanor without a warrant after the event or upon mere information or suspicion. ”

“ Furthermore, there are a number of instances in which a law enforcement officer might deliberately choose to omit certain items from a warrant application even though he has probable cause to seize them, knows they are on the premises, and intends to seize them when they are discovered in plain view. ”

“ Unquestionably, when a person is lawfully arrested, the police have the right, without a search warrant, to make a contemporaneous search of the person of the accused for weapons or for the fruits of or implements used to commit the crime. ”