Searched Without a Warrant? Stop the Police from Railroading You!?

Before the police make an arrest and they are going to conduct a search of either your person or your home or your car or your property, they either have to have a warrant or they have to have an exception to the warrant. An exception to the warrant could be something like consent from the person. It could be what we call an exigent circumstance such as a suspect of a crime who is fleeing and the officers apprehend him and then they search them. It’s important that the attorney look not just at the police reports but also dig into things like notes from police officers, radio transmissions, recordings from the scene, recordings from the officer if they had a recording device on their person, and police video recordings from the patrol vehicles. It’s important that the attorney look at all of those things because if there is no search warrant, the officers have to have probable cause to conduct a search unless there is also consent from the person which is also questionable, especially in the face of a lack of a recording. A good lawyer will know how to examine each of those potential avenues to see whether or not there truly was consent, whether the consent can be disproved and whether or not the officers truly had probable cause to conduct a search. There are cases within the State of California and the Federal District that lay down specific guidelines and rules that prevent police officers from simply willy-nilly conducting searches whenever they want. They cannot do that. Racial profiling takes place all the time. I have several cases going on right now that involve racial profiling and it’s important that the lawyers know how to dig through the evidence to show that there is racial profiling going on, that there is no escalating probable cause for the search, that there was no consent despite what’s represented in a police report and to really attack these things to stop excessive police misconduct.