Whenever a crime occurs and evidence of that crime is believed to be within suspects private residence, law enforcement officials must obtain a search warrant before entering the property. Otherwise, the homeowner is protected against any unreasonable search and seizure by the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The search warrant must be specific about the time, place, and items that investigators are searching and must be obtained on the basis of probable cause, which is a hard reason approved by a judge. Only law enforcement officials have the ability to obtain a search warrant. Lawyers, private investigators, and private individuals can not.
The steps required to get a valid search warrant are as follows:
1. Preparing the affidavit: This affidavit describes the place to be searched, the items to be searched, and the reasons why the officer expects the items will be found at the location (probable cause).
2. Preparing the warrant: This step results in the official document be signed by a judge permitting law enforcement to enter the premises for the search to take place.
3. Getting the warrant signed: Law enforcement officials present the warrant and affidavit to the judge. If the judge believes there is probable cause for a search to take place, he signs the warrant to make it official.
Sometimes, getting a search warrant to find evidence of a crime can be difficult, and it is not always cut and dry like you see on the CSI TV shows. Probable cause can be one of the first issues to prevent a warrant from being official. The law enforcement official must have a strong reason for believing that the items he is searching are at the specified location. A hunch or a suspicion on his part simply is not enough.
Another problem that arises when making a warrant official is that the warrant must describe exactly what police are looking for. For this reason, police tend to add any and all items they believe may be present. If police happen to discover other evidence while they are conducting a legitimate search for the items listed in the warrant, then that evidence CAN be taken into their custody.
Finally, another difficulty that arises when getting a search warrant is that the area to be searched must be explicitly defined. For example, if a search warrant identifies a house, but does not specifically mention that the storage shack or garage can be searched, then those places not spelled out in the warrant cannot be searched. If a warrant describes a garage to be searched but not the car parked within, then the garage can be searched but not the car.