Here is a different view of the "Warrantless Search" video:
Boston Globe food editor Sheryl Julian lives in Watertown and while she and her husband, Stephen Meuse, were absorbing all the SWAT team and police activity Friday morning around their neighborhood, suddenly there was a knock at their door.
“The SWAT team knocked on every door,” Julian said. “They came in but they didn’t go through the house. We told them we had been through the basement. They went through the garage, in every bush, the whole team, rifles poised, through every single inch of this neighborhood. And every single inch of our house outside.”
They were very calm, just having a conversation when they came to the door.
“They asked, ‘Have you seen anyone? Have you checked around? Very polite.’”
They were going from door to door.
And then, just as quickly, they were gone.
“It was very quiet.”
But not long after, the activity was back.
“The helicopters are getting closer and closer,” Julian said. “They are over our house. It feels like a helicopter is on our roof.” — Doug Most
When the SWAT team knocks - Boston.com
A couple of relevant questions come to my mind:
Was an arrest warrant in place for scumbag #2?
Were any search warrants in place?
Does either of these matter?
These shed some light on the subject.
Can the police search my home for a bomber?
SWAT teams descended on the Boston suburb of Watertown on Friday morning to conduct a door-to-door search for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect left alive after a convenience store robbery, car chase, and shootout Thursday night. Is it legal for the police to search your house without a warrant?
It can be. Under the Fourth Amendment, a judge issues a warrant if police can demonstrate that a search is “reasonable”—that there is “probable cause” to investigate a house, car, or backyard for evidence. But there are plenty of circumstances under which police can perform searches without invoking probable cause.
If you consent to a police search, officers do not need a warrant to enter your home. If you have a housemate, he or she can allow the police to rummage through common areas, such as the living room or the kitchen, but not private areas, such as your closet or bedroom.
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In exigent circumstances, or emergency situations, police can conduct warrantless searches to protect public safety. This exception to the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause requirement normally addresses situations of “hot pursuit,” in which an escaping suspect is tracked to a private home. But it might also apply to the events unfolding in Boston if further harm or injury might be supposed to occur in the time it takes to secure a warrant. A bomber believed to be armed and planning more violence would almost certainly meet such prerequisites.
Furthermore, police may enter a private residence to provide emergency assistance to an occupant—which may include apprehending a suspected terrorist who also happens to be inside. And if they plan to make an arrest in someone’s home, they can undertake a “protective sweep” of the dwelling first to confirm that no weapons or accomplices are stashed away where they can do damage later.
Should these justifications fail, the police could also just conduct a search that violates the Fourth Amendment, knowing that whatever evidence they turn up might not be admissible in court. If their first priority is securing public safety, such a bargain doesn’t seem too awful.
Bonus Explainer:
What if the cops are searching my house for bombers and they find a brick of cocaine on my coffee table?
You’re in trouble. According to the “plain view” doctrine, if police already have a right to be in your house and they notice evidence of a crime, they are entitled to seize that evidence for use against you in court. Of course, the SWAT teams searching for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev probably have more on their minds right now than illegal drug use.
Explainer thanks Kevin Cole of the University of San Diego School of Law.
Hot Pursuit
A doctrine that provides that the police may enter the premises where they suspect a crime has been committed without a warrant when delay would endanger their lives or the lives of others and lead to the escape of the alleged perpetrator; also sometimes called fresh pursuit.
Countless crime dramas have portrayed police officers in a high-speed chase barking into their radio that they are "in hot pursuit" of a suspect. This popular image says little about the legal rule of hot pursuit. As established by the U.S. Supreme Court, the rule is an important exception to the freedoms guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. That constitutional provision safeguards citizens against excessive police intrusion into their life and property. Its foremost protection is the Search Warrant, which must be obtained from a judge or magistrate before the police can conduct most searches. Under special circumstances, the rule of hot pursuit gives the police extra powers to enter private property and conduct a search without a warrant. The rule recognizes practical limitations on Fourth Amendment rights in light of the realities of police work, especially in emergencies, but it stops far short of giving the police complete freedom to conduct warrantless searches.
As a powerful deterrent to the abuse of power, the Fourth Amendment is designed to prevent the rise of a police state. The requirement that police officers obtain search warrants prevents Arbitrary violations of freedom, applying equally to federal and state authority. Yet this freedom is not absolute. In the twentieth century, the Supreme Court has carved out a few exceptions to its protections. These exceptions exist under "exigent circumstances": the emergency like demands of specifically defined situations that call for immediate response by the police, who must have Probable Cause to conduct a search. Generally, these are circumstances under which obtaining a search warrant would be impractical—ranging from those requiring officers to frisk suspects for weapons to those requiring officers to stop and search automobiles—as well as when suspects explicitly consent or imply consent to a search.
Hot pursuit is one such exigent circumstance. It usually applies when the police are pursuing a suspected felon into private premises or have probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed on private premises. The Supreme Court stated that "'hot pursuit' means some sort of a chase, but it need not be an extended hue and cry 'in and about the public streets'" (United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 96 S. Ct. 2406, 49 L. Ed. 2d 300 [1976]). Hot pursuit also applies when the lives of police officers or others are in danger. Thus, the Court has recognized two specific conditions that justify warrantless searches under the rule of hot pursuit:
the need to circumvent the destruction of evidence, and the need to prevent the loss of life or serious injury.
The Supreme Court enunciated the rule of hot pursuit in 1967, in Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S. Ct. 1642, 18 L. Ed. 2d 782. It had used the term before, but in Warden, it explicitly condoned a certain form of this warrantless search. In this case, police officers pursuing a suspected armed robber were told that he had entered a dwelling moments before their arrival. They entered the dwelling, searched it and seized evidence, and then apprehended the suspect in bed. The man alleged in court that the warrantless search of the premises had violated his Fourth Amendment rights. When the case reached the Supreme Court, it disagreed, justifying the search under exigent circumstances.
Since Warden, lower courts have applied the rule to determine whether police officers acted reasonably or unreasonably when conducting a search without obtaining a search warrant. Other cases have permitted warrantless entry and arrest in hot pursuit under different circumstances: when the police saw a suspect standing in her doorway who retreated inside carrying a package that contained marked money from a drug sting (United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 96 S. Ct. 2406, 49 L. Ed. 2d 300 [1976]); when the police had probable cause to arrest a suspect because he fit the description of an assailant who had threatened others and fled arrest (United States v. Lopez, 989 F.2d 24 (1st Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 872, 114 S. Ct. 201, 126 L. Ed. 2d 158 [1993]); and when a police officer at the threshold of an apartment viewed a narcotics deal taking place inside (United States v. Sewell, 942 F.2d 1209 [7th Cir. 1991]).
Although hot pursuit expands the powers of the police to conduct warrantless searches, it does so under strict circumstances. Its purpose is grounded in practical necessity; it does not give law officers license to ignore constitutional safeguards. Courts make the final determination of whether a warrantless search is permissible, and they will reject misuses of the rule. One improper use of hot pursuit occurred in O'Brien v. City of Grand Rapids, 23 F.3d 990 (6th Cir. 1994). In this case, police officers pursued a suspect to his house, called for backup, surrounded the residence, and ultimately spent six hours in a standoff without seeking a search warrant. The court held that the suspect could not have fled the scene and that the officers had no fear of destruction of evidence or of a threat to safety. Thus, no exigent circumstances authorized their warrantless search.
Can the Police Search Door to Door Without Warrants?
Heavily 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, 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.
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And a view from LE conducting the search from above thread:
If I might provide some insight to how the searches in Watertown were conducted. My team was assisting with security in Boston since a few hours after the bombings, and two of my guys and our Bearcat were on scene in Watertown with-in a few minutes of the shootout. The first few hours were as chaotic as you might think, but by the time the rest of our team was requested and responded (0900), the search was organized and methodical. We, by my count, were tasked with checking a little over a hundred residential structures, most of them being 2-4 family, with some single family and a few with 7-9 apartments in them, so probably near to 150-200 households. Out of those, only 5-6 were not occupied, and we did an exterior check and were able to contact the owners with the help of neighbors.
We drove through Boston on the way up, and everyone was taking the shelter in place order to heart. It wasn't "Not many people out because it's Christmas morning" quiet, it was "Like you see in the movies after the plague hit" quiet. Eerie.
We started out setting up a quick perimeter around each house, contacting the residents, speaking with them, asking them to step out while we checked their house/apartment/basement/garage, etc, and it was taking a long time and tiring the team. everyone was more than happy to give us consent to search, and since they were all watching out the windows as we made our way down the street, the knew we were coming and there were no "Plain view" issues. After a while, we realized that by asking to have everyone inside come to the door and by using our good cop skills, we conducted a quick threshold interview, asking them about their household, and inquiring about their neighbors and the neighborhood, we were able to move forward with our job. If we had any concerns, we asked and were granted permission to search inside. We have never had so many thank yous, or people relieved to see a SWAT team outside their door, than we did Friday.
We were well aware of the circumstances, and the need to tread lightly while staying focused and keeping in mind our mission. One of the news cameras caught one of our guys giving a little boy held in his dads arms a high five as we passed by on their porch, and there is another picture of one of our guys taking a second to pet a huge Irish wolfhound one of the residents had on a leash.
Given the exceptional danger and circumstances, I believe the rational for exigency articulated by Doubleduece623 and others here would cover any searches where consent was not given. I don't think there were any arrest warrants, and did not hear of any search warrents, but as everyone from the US Atty and the Mass Atty General on down were there I don't think it would have been a problem to have one issued PDQ.
We were on our way home when sus 2 was found, and not one of us didn't wish were were there.
It was a privilege and an honor to assist Boston Pd and Watertown Pd last week, and we found out those huge multi team trainings/exercises we've been holding for the last few years really paid off. Quite the experience.
Further research on Warrantless searches:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Warrantless home search hot pursuit&hl=en&as_sdt=4,60
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