Warrant officer

“ 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. ”

“ In ordinary cases, a warrant is granted by any justice of the peace upon information, on the oath of some credible witness, of facts from which it appears that a crime has been committed, and that the person against whom the warrant is sought to be obtained, is probably the guilty party, and is a document under the hand and seal of the justice, directed generally to the constable or other peace-officer, requiring him to bring the accused, either generally before any justice of the county, or only before the justice who granted it. This is the practice in ordinary cases ”

“ 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. ”

“ An officer making an arrest under a warrant issued upon a complaint or any person making an arrest without a warrant shall take the arrested person without unnecessary delay before the nearest available commissioner or before any other nearby officer empowered to commit persons charged with offenses against the laws of the United States. ”

“ The requirement that warrants shall particularly describe the things to be seized makes general searches under them impossible and prevents the seizure of one thing under a warrant describing another. As to what is to be taken, nothing is left to the discretion of the officer executing the warrant. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Warrant officers hold warrants from their service secretary and are specialists and experts in certain military technologies or capabilities. The lowest ranking warrant officers serve under a warrant, but they receive commissions from the President upon promotion to chief warrant officer 2. These commissioned warrant officers are direct representatives of the President of the United States. ”

“ A sheriff, constable, or other peace officer may arrest without warrant any one whom he has reasonable ground for suspecting to be guilty of a felony, although it may turn out that no such felony was ever committed. For any ordinary misdemeanor he could not, at common law, arrest without a warrant, unless he personally witnessed the wrongful act or was near enough to hear sounds indicating what was being done. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All right officer,” he added, “read your warrant.”
15“How can I read it when I can’t get my hands with these pesky things on them anywhere near my pocket?” demanded the constable, wrathily.
“Very well, then don’t say I obstructed the law by refusing you your rights.”
“When you land I’ll read the warrant,” explained the constable. “This boy has got to come with me. It’s defiance of law to refuse.”
“We will land very soon now,” promised Hiram. “Whisper, Elmer.”
The skillful pilot worked the exhaust purposely to cover a quick undertoned interview with his friend. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Any officer may, however, upon his own cognizance of a crime being committed, arrest the person or persons without warrant. If such authority were not given to officers of the law, many persons violating law would be able to escape before a warrant could be issued. Furthermore, under the laws of some States, any person who sees a crime committed is legally required to pursue and arrest the offending person and may himself be punished if he refuses to act. ”

“ And be it further enacted, When a warrant shall have been issued by any of the officers under the second section of this act, and [Pg 272] there shall be no marshal or deputy marshal within ten miles of the place where such warrant is issued, it shall be the duty of the officer issuing the same, at the request of the claimant, his agent or attorney, to appoint some fit and discreet person, who shall be willing to act as marshal, for the purpose of executing said warrant ”

“ Where an authorised officer has entered premises in the execution of a warrant issued under section 34, he may seize and retain any thing that is specified in the warrant, other than items subject to legal privilege. ”

“ The materials to be seized are instead described with sufficient particularity if the warrant readily permits their identification both by those entrusted with the warrant's execution and by the court in any subsequent judicial proceeding. "It is," the Court has said with reference to the particularity of the place to be searched, "enough if the description is such that the officer * * * can, with reasonable effort ascertain and identify" the warrant's objects. ”

“ The owner of the warrant has no power to control the conduct of the surveyor, whose duty it is to execute it, and it would therefore be unreasonable to deprive him of the title which the warrant confers upon him, on account of the subsequent neglect of that officer. ”

“ In case any action is brought against any police officer for any act done in obedience to the warrant of any execution of magistrate, such officer shall not be responsible for any irregularity in the issuing of the warrant or for any want of jurisdiction in the magistrate issuing the same and he may plead the general issue and give such warrant in evidence ”

“ When an officer undertakes to act § his own magistrate, he ought to be in a position to justify it by pointing to some real immediate and serious consequences if he postponed action to get a warrant.
I am the less reluctant to reach this conclusion because the method of enforcing the law exemplified by this search is one which not only violates legal rights of defendant but is certain to involve the police in grave troubles if continued. That it did not do so on this occasion was due to luck more than to foresight. Many home-owners in this crime-beset city doubtless are armed. ”

“ The fact that an officer is interested in an item of evidence and fully expects to find it in the course of a search should not invalidate its seizure if the search is confined in area and duration by the terms of a warrant or a valid exception to the warrant requirement. If the officer has knowledge approaching certainty that the item will be found, we see no reason why he or she would deliberately omit a particular description of the item to be seized from the application for a search warrant. ”

“ Whether or not the requirements of reliability and particularity of the information on which an officer may act are more stringent where an arrest warrant is absent, they surely cannot be less stringent then where an arrest warrant is obtained. Otherwise, a principal incentive now existing for the procurement of arrest warrants would be destroyed. [8] The threshold question in this case, therefore, is whether the officers could, on the information which impelled them to act, have procured a warrant for the arrest of Toy. ”

“ An officer may reasonably rely on a magistrate's approval of an overbroad warrant because the officer normally should not be penalized for the magistrate's mistake. See Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981, 990, 82 L. Ed. 2d 737, 104 S.C.t. 3424 (1984) ; U.S. v. Ninety-Two Thousand Four Hundred Twenty-Two Dollars and Fifty Seven Cents, 307 F.3d 137, 152 (3d Cir. 2002) . But there is no reasonable basis for an officer to exceed the scope of a warrant just because he asked for broader search authority in the affidavit. ”

“ It is true that an arrest warrant requirement may afford less protection than a search warrant requirement, but it will suffice to interpose the magistrate's determination of probable cause between the zealous officer and the citizen. If there is sufficient evidence of a citizen's participation in a felony to persuade a judicial officer that his arrest is justified, it is constitutionally reasonable to require him to open his doors to the officers of the law. ”

“ Are those who have no commissions, but only warrants from such boards or persons as are authorized by law to grant them. The only warrant-officers in the British service are master-gunners and schoolmasters. Technically the non-commissioned officers of the U. S. army are not warrant-officers, though they are appointed by warrants. ”

“ Statutes and municipal charters have quite generally authorized an officer to arrest for any misdemeanor whether a breach of the peace or not, without a warrant, if committed in the officer’s presence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A warrant issued authorizing an officer to search for property stolen or detained, is called a SEARCH WARRANT. BAIL is security given for the release of a person from prison. When a person is arrested and charged with a crime he may, if the crime be not a very serious one, be let out of prison and left at liberty until trial, if some one will give security or pledge for him that he will appear in court on the day appointed for the trial. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In other words, the use of these tactics was not the result of any circumstances which had occurred on February 28.
In 1917, [49] Congress enacted the Federal knock and announce statute. [50] Generally speaking, the statute permits forcible entry for the purpose of executing a search warrant only after the officer gives notice of his authority and his purpose but is refused admittance. Courts interpreting the statute, however, have adopted a number of exceptions to the rule allowing unannounced police entries in limited exigent circumstances. ”

“ If an authorized officer reasonably suspects that a person has committed or is committing an offence under an enactment specified in Schedule 5, the authorized officer may arrest the person without a warrant.
(2) If a person forcibly resists the attempt of an authorized officer to arrest him or her or attempts to evade arrest, the authorized officer may use all reasonable means necessary to make the arrest. ”

“ Section 5: 'That any officer of said prison or any federal officer authorized to serve criminal process within the United States, to whom such warrant shall be delivered, is authorized and required to execute such warrant by taking such prisoner and returning him to said prison within the time specified in said warrant therefor. ”

“ An officer, in order to make an arrest either by virtue of a warrant, or when authorized to make such arrest for a felony without a warrant, as provided in section 21, may break open a door or window of any building in which the person to be arrested is or is reasonably believed to be, if he is refused admittance after he has announced his authority and purpose.'
5 See also Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98, 100-101, 80 S.Ct. 168, 169-171, 4 L.Ed.2d 134; Lasson, The History and Development of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1937) , c. II ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have found that FPD officers frequently check individuals for warrants, even when the person is not reasonably suspected of engaging in any criminal activity, and, if a municipal warrant exists, will often make an arrest. City officials have told us that the decision to arrest a person for an outstanding warrant is "highly discretionary" and that officers will frequently not arrest unless the person is "ignorant." Records show, however, that officers do arrest individuals for outstanding municipal warrants with considerable frequency. ”

“ These messengers in ordinary have always been considered as officers of the Secretaries of State, and a commitment may be to their custody, as in Sir W. Wyndham's case. A justice of peace may make a constable pro hac vice to execute a warrant, who would be within the Stat. 24 Geo. 2. So if these defendants are not constables, yet as officers they have power to execute a warrant out of his jurisdiction; officers acting under colour of office, though doing an illegal act, are within this statute. ”