The founding fathers were greatly concerned about the potential for abuse of power to conduct a warrantless search of citizens or their property. This concern is what inspired the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. constitution. Under this amendment, law enforcement may only search a person or their property by first obtaining a warrant. In Florida however, there are four general categories of circumstances allowing an officer to search without a warrant. Learn more about warrants from Jacksonville Criminal Defense Attorney, James Davis.

Consent
If a citizen gives consent for officers to search, then they may search but it is vital that the consent was given on a voluntary basis without coercion. Any person has the option of refusing to consent to a search and they must make certain the officer understands the lack of consent. The law unfortunately does not require an officer to let people know that consent to search is voluntary nor does it forbid an officer from using any form of deception in order to get consent just so long as their deceptions do not equal coercion.

Occasionally, there are times when a third party can give an officer consent to search without a warrant but the third party has to have “common authority” over the property in question. Examples of common authority include a roommate, a spouse, or a parent; landlords are not allowed to give consent to search a tenant’s home.

Plain View
If the police happen to see something in “plain view” that is illegal, they can conduct a warrantless search unless the officer spots an illegal substance in “plain view”, which is not by itself enough to conduct a warrantless search. For example, if an officer sees what he thinks is a bag of drugs through a window, this is not enough to warrant a warrantless search. But, if the officer has a search warrant to look for counterfeiting evidence and then discovers the bag of drugs while searching for counterfeiting evidence, then they can legally seize the drugs.

Emergency Circumstances
An emergency situation is a valid basis to conduct a warrantless search. An emergency situation is where it is unreasonable to expect the officer to wait on a warrant before acting. Two examples include if a person inside your home calls for help but is unable to answer the door and let the officers in and if a suspect who the police are in “hot pursuit” of enters your home, the officers may enter your home without a warrant. While inside your home, if the officers see illegal drugs in “plain view,” they can legally seize the drugs. In addition, if they see that evidence is about to be destroyed, they may enter without a warrant.

Vehicles
In many cases, the police is allowed to run a warrantless search on vehicles due to their transitory nature. Even though the officer may proceed with the warrantless search, they must have probable cause to pull over the car and is still limited to search only certain areas of the car.

If you are the victim of an arrest and warrantless search, more than likely the police will say you were legally pursuant to one of the above exceptions. It is vital that you make contact with a criminal defense lawyer so you can challenge the charges and the warrantless search. This is the only way to ensure that the letter of the law is followed in all cases.