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hey everybody mark Victor here with the attorneys for freedom law firm and I'm here today to tell you a little bit about search warrants we get lots of questions about search warrants I think it's important to note right up front that there are some little differences nuances in how they're obtained and how they're served and different particular some slight differences from state to state so this is really general advice search warrants are governed by really the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution there's a clause in there that talks about search warrants and that is the constitutional minimum standard states can always provide more protection in the case of search warrants but there are some basic things and I want to just talk about them first off what is a search warrant well really what a search warrant is it's a written order signed by a judge that directs a law enforcement officer to go out in search somewhere and this is not just something that is obtained sort of willy-nilly this has to be supported by what we call an affidavit it's generally a written statement under oath by a law enforcement officer that's the application if you will for the order from the judge which is called the search warrant sometimes they can be done orally as well but there has to be a record so if later somebody wants to challenge it and say this there was a problem with this search warrant we can go back and see exactly what the assertions were in the affidavit first thing you got to know is the standard of proof is probable cause that's what the Constitution requires so that's what all states will require because it's the minimum standard so there has to be a showing of evidence by probable cause before a judge or a magistrate will actually issue the warrant the other thing is the Constitution doesn't allow sort of general warrants what does that mean just sort of a warrant to generally search somebody it has two very very particular which is what we call the particularity requirement for warrants they have to say exactly what it is they're searching for describe the place and all of that sometimes there are restrictions on when warrants can be served they can always be served in the daytime and sometimes they can be served at night but that's generally a decision that the magistrate will make when the magistrate will issue the warrant they'll authorize this to be served as well at night as well as the daytime and nighttime different states might see this differently in Arizona where we do a lot of cases 10:30 p.m. is generally the standard until 6:30 a.m. there are other things about warrants that are important to know sometimes usually the officer will have to show up if it's somebody's home in knock in announce hello police here we're here with a search warrant sometimes this is supposed to be in rare cases and sometimes it's not so rare a magistrate or judge will issue a warrant and say look this is a no-knock warrant which means they can just burst in they can just break and enter why would a judge allow that well the our United States Supreme Court has said there are some cases namely whether there's gonna be a safety there's an endangerment issue that if they knock this might give a dangerous person inside some time to grab a gun and put the officers or another person in danger so sometimes you may get a no-knock warrant for that reason another reason might be there's reasons to believe that the evidence inside which is the subject of the search warrant is going to be destroyed so just in that short period of time where there is a knock on the door the judge may find that there's not enough time to allow this person inside they can just flush them maybe drugs down the toilet or something so sometimes a judge will authorize that it's important to note that if the police show up and they've got a valid warrant and they're there to search if they're not allowed in or they're refused entry they're actually authorized to break and enter so this is a good tip if the police show up at your home and they've got a warrant and they're there to search your best to just let them in they're supposed to leave you a copy and of course anything they seize they're required to give you a listing of exactly what it is they've seized some people will have questions about well what if they're there and it says they're going to search one person's do they get to search another person's room the answer is no they don't get to search at the warrant again has to be particular exactly say what they're searching they may get to search one person's room in common areas this doesn't mean that I recommend and this is sort of a piece of advice here the scene is a bad place to be challenging the warrant so if the police say hey we're going to enter this other room and you look at the warrant and you don't feel that the warrant actually allows them to search this room this is not a good time to challenge the authority of the police officer there's a remedy for this it's called the motion to suppress in criminal defense attorneys like we do at the attorneys for freedom law firm we challenge search warrants all the time it's important to note though that just because the warrant is actually invalid doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get a suppression of whatever it is that is seized there are some intricate rules and I don't want to get in all the details but generally speaking if the officer is acting in good faith which means the officer has no reason to know there's some type of a defect usually we're talking about a technical defect in the search warrant then that doesn't mean that the evidence will be suppressed normally it will be allowed into evidence even if the warrant is invalid keep in mind there are ways to challenge this there's a hearing it's called the Franks hearing criminal defense lawyers are very familiar with this hearing that type of a hearing is in essence when the criminal defense lawyer says hey yes they served a warrant but the officer did something wrong they put misleading information they put information maybe they knew was false or something that they were reckless about they had what we call a reckless disregard for the truth or maybe they intentionally omitted some very important evidence if they didn't tell the judge important things in that affidavit for the warrant or they misled that judge then that might lead to a suppression of the evidence because really the officer is acting in bad faith so those are some general overviews about search warrants but the bottom line is if you're out there at the scene and the police show up and they claim to have a sir warrant this is a very bad time to be getting into a dispute and under no circumstances should you be getting into any kind of a physical altercation with the police and telling them they can't they can't enter or they can't search and trying to get physical with them don't ever do that that will always lead to worse problems they show up with a search warrant you have to let them search if they see something they're not supposed to sees or they did something wrong we'll hash that out in court if there's a problem the judge will suppress the evidence and there are many suppressions that happen even in very serious cases we've achieved that in our cases on many occasions it happens it's not frequent and there are many exceptions and some people will say that the law is somewhat slanted to avoid suppressing evidence but evidence does get suppressed bottom line here the police officers show up with a search warrant let them search anyways this has been marked Victor hopefully that's been a helpful overview to help you understand a little bit more about search warrants