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Common sense ruling for cops or violation of 4th Amendment search and seisure?

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  • breakingcontact

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    http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/12/parker_county_meth_search_warr.php

    Informant notifies cops meth "cook" is going to happen. Cops surveil house, then walk in and handcuff everyone, then search house for drug fixins....then get warrant.

    Things like this are how police and govs expand power. Target a class of society that no one likes, expand power based on that, then apply to the next group...then to you.

    Again, notice this is Texas. I read the other day about how Texas is so strict and aggressive in police work due to the laws going way back here to the Spanish/Mexican law. Different tradition than most other states.
    Military Camp
     
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    Blind Sniper

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    >.> You copy-pasta'd the wrong link.

    In regards to what actually happened, doesn't having probable cause (or solid evidence) mean you don't need a warrant to go in and cuff people or search the building?
     

    txinvestigator

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    >.> You copy-pasta'd the wrong link.

    In regards to what actually happened, doesn't having probable cause (or solid evidence) mean you don't need a warrant to go in and cuff people or search the building?
    Probable cause is needed for a warrwnt. There are a few exceptions to the search warrant requirment.

    Breakingcontact, it appears a federal decision was the basis for the final decision in this case, not a Texas precedent. CI information is good for obtaining warrants, but only having the facts here the extremely biased Dallas Observer wants you to have; it is difficult to actually determine what actually happened......There could be clear cut facts left out, opinion statements ommittee.

    I will tell you that, based on how the Observer wrote it, it dont smell right. But I have learned to be careful with that bit of "journalism".
     

    jordanmills

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    I would like to hear more about this too. From what I know, if the cops could legally be in the house to perform an arrest, they don't need a warrant to act on what they see in the course of performing those arrests. Question is why they bothered with the warrant.
     

    popo22

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    Normally if you are already inside the residence legally making an arrest then anything you observe in "plain view" is OK, but to search beyond that "plain view" exception you would need a search warrant.
     

    M. Sage

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    Normally if you are already inside the residence legally making an arrest then anything you observe in "plain view" is OK, but to search beyond that "plain view" exception you would need a search warrant.

    True, but outside some specific circumstances, you need a warrant to go inside a home to arrest somebody. It doesn't sound like they had that.
     

    txinvestigator

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    Maybe they could smell the meth cooking, giving probable cause.

    Probable Cause is needed for a warrant, not to search without a warrant. Plain view applies to all of your senses, and a warrant is not needed to seize if contraband is in plain view.

    There has to be case law on smell of an illegal substance in a private residence. Homework..... lol
     

    bones_708

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    You guys are missing the point of the ruling. The cops were wrong, the court agrees, that isn't the issue. It is if the evidence can be used not if the cops actions are proper that was the question. The argument would be something along the lines of if there was some other way or source that the evidence would of been discovered anyway without police misconduct. In this case the court must of agreed that the police would have still discovered the evidence regardless. The ruling has no effect on warrants or anything else. It is purely about the admissibility of evidence.
     

    popo22

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    From the article its hard to tell what the Officers based the entry on. I am thinking they based the entry on some "exigency" (whether valid or not) and then made entry and determined the information and evidence had merit to apply for a search warrant, but because the information is very vague, that's just speculation.
     

    GPtwins

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    There are a few exceptions to the search warrent. One being witnessing a crime in progress. To get a search warrant you need probable cause, that is what the informant is for. So getting information from a source then staking out the house is a good way to go. If a crime was not blatantly committed on the front porch then I would Definitely challenge that.
     
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