Criminal Justice Assignment

From the scenario described where police officers entered into Andrea’s house to search for a stolen pendant, and in the process they recovered an illegal possessed gun, the statement that is most appropriate and accurate is (d), which states that the pendant was properly seized pursuant to the search warrant but once the police found it on Andrea, they were not permitted to search any further. This is because, a search warrant allows for a search in every place in the house as long as the item identified as evidence on the warrant has not been recovered, but once recovered; the search must be stopped (Zander, 1990, 54). Therefore after the police had found the pendant in Andrea’s pants pocket, there was no need for further search. According to the law, the pendant was legally recovered because it was indentified as evidence on the warrant but the gun was illegally seized because it was not indicated on the search warrant.

The other statements represented by, (a) (b) (c) (e), have been discarded because, the law does not allow further search once the evidence identified on the warrant has been found, thus (a) can not be appropriate since the police searched further even after they had seized the evidence.  Consequently, the motion was to be denied because the gun was seized following the extension of the search (Zander, 1990). The search was only limited to the pendant and not any other evidence, thus making (b) inappropriate. Since the extended search was illegal, the seized gun was to be suppressed as evidence and at the same time a warrantless arrest is only permissible when the police fear that the suspect might escape (Tyrer & Lawton, 2000, p. 49). Statement (e) is incorrect because the law declares that once a police officer has a search warrant and gets into your home, the warrant allows him/ her to search for the indentified evidence on the warrant even without your consent. Thus their entering into Andrea’s home should be considered reasonable because they had probable cause to conduct the search.

As for second scenario where the police discovered marijuana in Tanner’s shaving kit when they extended their search to the adjacent rooms, the statement that is appropriate and correct is that the police had no right to arrest Tanner because search was illegal as already described (Scaros, 2010, p. 238). Besides, it is not clear whose gun it was, thus there was no evidence for charging Tanner with the possession of an unregistered gun. Therefore (a) can be said is the appropriate statement that correctly fits the answer; both the gun and marijuana are supposed to be suppressed as evidences because the police had no probable cause to associate Tanner to the gun. After all, the gun was found in Andrea’s house and there is a likelihood that it belonged to Andrea. Besides, the police had no basis to conduct the search in the adjacent rooms. Thus by moving upstairs and extending their search in those rooms, the police were violating the privacy rights since they had already discovered the pendant (Bacigal, 2008, p. 152).

The alternative statements; (b) (c) (d) (e) have been discarded because; (b), it is the extended illegal search to the adjacent rooms that led to the recovery of the marijuana. Therefore it is not the warrantless arrest, but the unlawful search after recovery of the identified evidence; this excludes the gun and the marijuana as evidence.  The law only allows confiscation of illicit objects that can be seen plainly by other person without intrusion, but when an intrusion is made, the objects should not be used as evidences whatsoever (Siegel, 2009, p. 334). Neither the gun nor the marijuana was found in plain view thus (b) is inappropriate. As for (c), the gun should not be permissible because it was discovered in an unlawful search. The law allows search in every places identified in the warrant and the search is limited to these places or when object has been recovered. No search is supposed to go beyond these places and search should be stopped immediately the object has been found (Zander, 1990, 54). Thus (d) and (e) are disqualified since the search was beyond the requirement of the law.