Under common law knock-and-announce rule, a police officer executing a search warrant generally should not immediately force their way into a residence. Instead, the officer must first knock, identify themselves and their intent, and wait a reasonable amount of time for the occupants to let them into the residence.
Reasonable suspicion is a standard used in criminal procedure. Reasonable suspicion is used in determining the legality of a police officer's decision to perform a search.
A search warrant is a warrant signed by a judge or magistrate authorizing a law enforcement officer to conduct a search on a certain person, a specified place, or an automobile for criminal evidence.
Does the Fourth Amendment require the police to obtain a warrant before searching an arrestee’s cellphone call log?
Boston police officers arrested Brima Wurie in 2007 for distributing crack cocaine. Among the items confiscated from Wurie was his cell phone, which rang repeatedly while he was detained. Without obtaining a warrant, officers looked through the phone’s call log, and with that information, determined the address of a residence where they found drugs, a firearm, and ammunition. At his criminal trial, the federal district court denied Wurie’s motion to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the police’s warrantless search of his cellular phone. The court found Wurie guilty of possession of narcotics with intent to distribute, distributing cocaine base, and being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. The First Circuit reversed the district court’s denial and vacated Wurie’s conviction, holding that the Fourth Amendment requires the police to obtain a warrant before searching an arrestee’s cell phone. The Supreme Court’s ruling in this case will help shape the contours of the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures in light of new technologies.
Whether the Fourth Amendment permits the police, without obtaining a warrant, to review the call log of a cellphone found on a person who has been lawfully arrested.
On September 5, 2007, Boston police officers spotted an apparent drug deal inside Brima Wurie’s car, a Nissan Altima. See United States v. Wurie, 728 F.3d 1, 1 (1st Cir. 2013). Upon stopping Fred Wade, the man identified with the alleged drug sale, police discovered two bags of crack cocaine in his pocket.
