Search and seizure exceptions

Searches conduced outside the judicial process are per se unreasonable — subject to only a few specifically established imperative exceptions. Even if reasonable at inception, a search may violate the Fourth Amendment by how it is carried out. Recognized exceptions to this Amendment have been growing in breadth and number (i.e., motor vehicles, marine vessels, open fields, abandon property, plain view, evanescent evidence, electronic surveillance, national security electronic surveillance). 

The following noninclusive searches are applicable to various situations, which may involve explosives and dangerous chemicals. 

Motor vehicles are subject to the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure. The Supreme Court, has, however, created the 

If a car is impounded for a valid reason, police may conduct inventory searches. If these searches yield evidence of a crime, the evidence wiU likely sustain a challenge to the legality of the search. 

Many of the Supreme Court s holdings on the validity of a search are not usually affected in appHcabiHty by the type of contraband, other than the type of suspicion that it may arouse. Thus, rules that apply to the seizure of drugs should equally apply to the seizure of explosives or weapons, or any other illegal item. 

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