Evidentiary search and seizure

The general types of searches normally encountered are emergency, exigent, inventory, no-knock, private, protective, regulatory, administrative, special needs, shakedown (prison) strip, voluntary, warrantless, and zone. 

Under the Fourth Amendment, several general search categories exempt from the warrant-and-probable cause requirement include suspicionless searches conducted at the border in prisons at airports entrances to government buildings administrative searches inspections of closely regulated businesses routine regulatory investigations and special needs searches. These warrantless situations predominantly involve 

A preliminary overview of the Fourth Amendment s application and exceptions include the search, seizure, protective stop, and frisk (Terry Stop) exception, search incident to arrest, administrative search exception, and consent exception. 

In modem society, a search is premised upon a person s right to privacy, rather than traditional physical trespass. The Amendment protects people, not places. In Katz v. United States [24] the Court rejected the property approach in favor of a privacy approach. The Supreme Court held a nontresspassory eavesdropping into a public telephone booth constituted a search. The Court focused on the privacy aspect of the amendment, rather than applying it to specific location. The Court declined to characterize a telephone booth as a constitutionally protected area. A search occurs when (1) a person s subjective expectation of privacy is invaded providing (2) society is prepared to recognize that expectation is reasonable. The definition of reasonableness is itself determined on a case by case basis [37]. 

A seizure of property occurs when there is some meaningfiil interference with an individual s possessory interest in that property [38]. Seizure of a person can occur when a police officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen. However, not aU personal intercourse between policemen and citizens involves seizures of persons [39]. 

---