What are some of the exceptions to the warrant requirement recognized by the Supreme Court?

0:04The exceptions to the warrant requirement are really about situations where either the government has a pressing need, if they don't act now, they'll lose the evidence, or there might be some circumstances where a search and seizure might occur, where the harm, the part that makes you particularly concerned about government abuse is probably less pressing in that situation.

0:26Let me take a look at a couple of these. One exception to the warrant requirement is called exigent circumstances. It's really just a fancy way of saying emergencies. An example might be, let's say the police show up outside of a home and they have probable cause to believe that, say, for example, someone inside has a meth lab or some drug activity occurring inside, and the police show up at the front door and they hear someone inside the house say, flush the drugs down the toilet, is the police outside. Well, if the government has to go then get a warrant, that might take a couple of hours to get a warrant. By the time they come back, the drugs are going to be gone. The Supreme Court has said in those circumstances where it's just going to take too long to get the legal process when they already have probable cause, they're allowed to break down the door in order to make sure the evidence is preserved. That's called exigent circumstances.

1:19Another exception we could talk about is called consent, that is permission. Let's say the government is called to your house, and actually, you think you want to let the police search your house. Why might you want to do that? Well, maybe there's someone else in your house who's committing a crime, and you might actually be a potential victim of that crime. You might say, police, I want you to come in. I want you to enter my house.

1:42The Supreme Court has said, well, in those circumstances, someone with common authority over the property, they're allowed to consent to a search. The government doesn't need a search warrant. The plain view exception is a rule that if the government comes across evidence and the incriminating nature of that evidence is immediately apparent, they can take that evidence away, even if it's not related to the reason they saw the evidence in the first place.

2:06When might this happen? Let's say the government is executing a search warrant for tax fraud documents. They think someone has committed tax fraud, and they get a search warrant based on probable cause to believe there's tax documents inside the person's home, and they break into the person's home, and there on the kitchen table, they see cocaine. Can they take the cocaine and turn that into a drug case for illegal possession of the drugs, or do they have to come back and get a warrant, or are they completely forbidden to take that cocaine? Well, the plain view exception to the Fourth Amendment says that as long as the officers are where they are lawfully allowed to be, that is, they had a warrant to get into the house, and the incriminating nature of that evidence, that is the fact that it's contraband or evidence is immediately apparent,

2:51they can take that evidence even though they don't have a warrant for it. That's a case where the government could look through the house for tax records and say, well, we see this cocaine, and we know just looking at it that it's cocaine, we'll take that too, and that can be obtained in addition to the tax records they had the warrant for.