If somebody anonymously falsely reports that somebody on a given address has child porn, do the cops actually get a search warrant? Let's say that Joe hates John. Joe knows that John is security-aware and has encrypted all of his hard disks and storage devices. John keeps the decryption phrase in his head. Joe makes an anonymous telephone call or otherwise reports John to the police, claiming that he knows for sure that John has child porn. Will the cops now go home to John and demand that he gives the cops all of his hardware and tells them the decryption phrase for them to go through it in the headquarters? My skin starts crawling at the thought of my data being looked through by anyone, including cops, who might be making copies and then leak them due to malice or incompetence. Even if they find nothing illegal, John will feel extremely violated after that experience, and must assume that all of his data has been copied/stolen/compromised. He initially refused to tell them the decryption phrase, but they threaten to lock him up indefinitely if he did not. They may also have turned off their bodycams and smacked him around a bit. And even if he consistently refuses to tell them the decryption phrase, and they are unable to brute-force it (who knows what kind of hardware they have access to these days?), they still may have taken copies of the encrypted data for &quot;future brute-force attempts&quot;, so John will always wonder if his data is compromised or not, even though he didn't even actually have any child porn or anything else that's illegal. Is this really how things are done? I have a feeling that it's exactly how it happens, as long as the reporter is convincing/serious-sounding.
One of the leading U.S. Supreme Court cases on probable cause in circumstances in which there is an anonymous informant is Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1983). In that case it allowed the use anonymous informants’ tips as part of the factual basis substantiating a probable-cause determination, which is the standard necessary to issue a search warrant. One summary of this case explains: In Gates, an anonymous informant wrote a letter to the police claiming that Lance and Sue Gates were selling drugs, hiding $100,000 of drugs in their basement, bragging about not having to work, and planning a trip to Florida to buy over $100,000 worth of drugs. The letter specified the approximate timing for the trip, as well as some other details of the couple’s regular travel arrangements. The police corroborated some of these details—including the timing of the upcoming trip as well as its initiation in real time, through their own investigation, and ultimately acquired a warrant to search the couple’s car and home, where they found drugs, weapons, and other contraband. The Supreme Court held that the combination in Gates of the anonymous informant’s tip and police corroboration of some of the information that the tip provided were sufficient to make out probable cause to justify the issuance of the search warrant. This was true, moreover, despite the fact that what the police corroborated were primarily innocent sorts of details—in other words, details that did not (in the absence of the criminal accusations) necessarily point to criminal activity. More recently, the U.S. Supreme Court held in the case of Navarette v. California, 572 U.S. 393 (2014), that an anonymous 911 call could, under the circumstances of the case, provide a basis for establishing probable cause. As on summary of the case explains: someone called 911 saying she had been run off the road by a pickup truck. The anonymous caller gave the 911 operator the make, model and license plate number of the pickup truck as well as the location of where she was allegedly ran off the road. Police stopped the driver of the truck, smelled marijuana and discovered 30 pounds of marijuana. Navarette was arrested but argued the police had no probable cause for the initial stop as they had no way of establishing the identity or reliably of the anonymous caller. The majority of the Supreme Court did not agree, holding that police can stop someone if the information obtained from an anonymous informant provides enough detail to create reasonable suspicion of a crime. In Justice Thomas’ majority opinion, he concluded that the caller was an eyewitness who was forced off the road leading police to believe the pickup truck driver was drunk. Thomas also felt it was reasonable to rely on the information given by anonymous 911 callers because the calls are recorded and the service can track and identify callers. A similar analysis would apply in the case in the question.
can really anyone in Germany call the police on others without proof of anything? Anyone anywhere can call the police without proof of anything as long as they have a phone. The question is, what will the police do about it. Police in Germany are more professional and less corrupt than in many countries in the world (e.g. they are much less corrupt than police in much of the United States or police in Southern Italy or Mexico, or in much of the &quot;third-world&quot;). Most German police are unlikely to exercise their power unless they are genuinely deceived into thinking that you committed an actual crime. But, German cops are human too. Some German cops are bad cops and even good cops aren't perfect truth detectors or bias free. and if so what are my rights? There has to be some evidence to arrest you or prosecute you, but testimony from people who claim to be eye witnesses is a form of evidence and proof. People are routinely convicted of crimes (everywhere in the world) based solely upon the testimony of other people with no additional proof. This is usually a good rule. As a society we don't want the criminal justice system to let people who commit crimes that are witnessed by lots of truthful witnesses and testified to, to go free just because there is no non-testimonial evidence. But because people lie (or are simply mistaken about the truth) sometimes, it isn't a perfect way of determining who is guilty and who is innocent. You also have the right to lodge a complaint of criminal defamation with the police in Germany and in Germany hundreds of thousands of such cases are prosecuted by police every year. Making false accusations against you (or even just insulting you in an extremely offense manner) as they did is a minor crime in Germany. and the person I mentioned had 2 of his employees with him but I am sure and I know for a fact they are on his side and I had no witnesses with me so how can I prove I am innocent? if they agreed on making up a story against me? The possibility that people will be wrongfully arrested and wrongfully convicted of crimes because people lie and authorities believe the people who are lying is a constant risk. The best you can do is to tell your story consistently and honestly and hope that you are believed. But it is impossible to eliminate the risk that people will lie and be believed and that you will suffer the consequences, even if you are doing everything right. In the long run, you may want to avoid people who you think would lie and make false accusations around you, and to have the presence of either friendly witnesses and/or audio/visual recording at times when you are in their presence. You may also, as a long run strategy try to figure out if there was anything you could have done to prevent them from being out to get you so badly that they would make false accusations against you. While I don't want to blame the victim, and often enough, especially for example, if you are a foreigner or otherwise different in a homogeneous community some people are doing to hate you for no reason, sometimes their real motivation may be a failure to follow social norms that are not actually illegal, or a misunderstand that could be cleared up.
If the police are able to attain a warrant that for some reason identifies your room and your things in particular, then they can search your room and seize your things. Ideally the police would have to give the judge or magistrate reasonable suspicion that their target has put some evidence in your room, or that some of your things are evidence relating to the purported crime. In practice, warrants err on the side of generality, so the police can easily get a warrant to search "the whole residence" without contemplating the nuance of which tenants use which rooms. Likewise, when determining what to seize, the police can certainly choose to err on the broad side and seize anything that meets the criteria of the warrant without stopping to determine who owns what. "Respect" of any sort is not a legal factor in the execution of an approved warrant.
There are no such laws that are specific to rape, but there are general laws about false statements. In every state there is some law against making a false statement to a government official, e.g. Washington RCW 9A.76.175 which says that one who "knowingly makes a false or misleading material statement to a public servant is guilty of a gross misdemeanor". To shift context slightly, if you report to the police that Smith stole your lawn mower when in fact you gave it to him, that is a false statement. However, there would have to be clear proof that you lied in your report, and not that there was a misunderstanding. If Smith stole the mower but the evidence did not support a theft conviction, that does not mean that you can be prosecuted for making a false statement (whereas, if someone has a video of you telling Smith "Here's a mower, which I give to you because I like you", then you could almost be prosecuted for making a false statement, were it not for the fact that the video is illegal in Washington). Perjury is the other related crime: RCW 9A.72.020 "a materially false statement which he or she knows to be false under an oath required or authorized by law". [Addendum] About the video of the mower being given away... Washington is an all-party consent state, meaning that you can't just record people, you have to have their permission (everybody's permission). RCW 9.73.050 says that information obtained by illegal recording shall be inadmissible in any civil or criminal case in all courts of general or limited jurisdiction in this state, except with the permission of the person whose rights have been violated in an action brought for damages under the provisions of RCW 9.73.030 through 9.73.080 which is to say, "unless the person(s) who did not give permission to be recorded now give permission for the evidence to be admitted". Since "you" would be the one making a false statement, "you" would have an interest in suppressing the video, thus "you" could withhold permission for the video to be introduced.
Wooden made two arguments to suppress the evidence, first that he had not consented to the officer entering his house (the officer and the court disagreed) and the second that even if the officer's entry had been legitimate, the evidence wasn't legitimate because of the Fourth Amendment: Much of Wooden’s challenge turns on the fact that Mason was neither in uniform nor identified himself as a police officer. Both are true. But generally speaking, neither amounts to improper deception in the Fourth Amendment context. United States v. Baldwin , 621 F.2d 251, 252–53 (6th Cir. 1980) (citing Lewis v. United States , 385 U.S. 206, 211, 87 S.Ct. 424, 17 L.Ed.2d 312 (1966) ). Nor did Mason take any affirmative steps to attempt to deceive Wooden regarding his identity. Mason was silent as to his official position; he did not hold himself out to be anything he was not. He merely asked to speak to Harris and then asked if he could come inside, to get out of the cold. Probably relevant also is that the officer didn't &quot;search&quot; for the rifle that prompted the arrest. Wooden picked it up in plain sight, the search of Wooden's person that revealed the second firearm was done as the officer arrested him for the rifle and the subsequent search of the house was carried out with the consent of the other resident Janet Harris.
TV shows like COPS will have the arrestees/suspects/bystanders/victims sign a waiver to appear on the show, along with anybody else that they film in the process, otherwise the faces will be blurred, or removed from the show entirely. Additionally you can tell the camera crews that they are not allowed in your home. If they do enter your home without permission, you can sue them for trespassing. It should be noted that those shows are often edited for drama, and as such seem much more dramatic than it is. The film crews may spend weeks or more (400 hours of video) just to get enough "good stuff" for a 22 minute episode, and then make it look like it all happens over the course of an evening. As for the moral/social acceptance of a lack of privacy, that question really isn't on-topic here. This should be the same for any other "COPS-like" TV/youtube show, but there are some shows out there that don't take the rules as seriously as others. Those usually operate under the "who we are filming probably can't afford a lawyer" mentality so they keep going until they get sued.
Miranda rights do not attach until the suspect is subject to custodial interrogation. "Custody" means that the suspect reasonably believes that he is not free to leave the conversation. "Interrogation" means that the officer is engaging in direct questioning or other conduct that would reasonably be expected to elicit a response. A suspect is free to waive his Miranda rights and begin speaking without a lawyer, but a waiver must be knowing, intelligent and voluntary. "Voluntary" means that the waiver is obtained without coercion (torture, threats or promises) by the government. None of the five scenarios indicate that Clyde ever believes he is in custody, so he has no Miranda rights in any of them, making his confession admissible in all of them. But to play it out further, let's assume that Officer Olivia arrives and immediately slaps handcuffs on Clyde: No interrogation, no Miranda rights. The confession is admissible. No interrogation, no Miranda rights. The confession is admissible. Miranda rights attached at the beginning of questioning. Clyde waived by confessing. Reading the Miranda rights established that the waiver was knowing. We don't have any facts suggesting the waiver was not intelligent. The waiver was not obtained by government coercion, so it was voluntary. The waiver was effective, so the confession is admissible. Same as 3. No interrogation, no Miranda rights. The confession is admissible. The key thing to keep in mind here is that the purpose of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination was to avoid misconduct by the government, and it has generally been implemented only to that end. The key case here is Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157 (1986), which involved a guy who approached a police officer and asked to talk about a murder he had committed. The officer Mirandized him, and he told them all about the murder and where he buried the body. It turned out that he was a chronic schizophrenic and was going through a psychotic break at the time of the confession, which he had only offered because "God's voice" told him to. As with your truth serum scenario, the question became whether the Miranda waiver satisfied the voluntariness requirement. The Colorado Supreme Court held that "capacity for rational judgment and free choice may be overborne as much by certain forms of severe mental illness as by external pressure." But the U.S. Supreme Court reversed, holding that neither the defendant's due-process rights nor his right against self-incrimination are offended by non-governmental influences, even when they undercut the defendant's free will. Since then, other courts have relied on Connelly to hold that voluntariness was not defeated by: a suspect's flu, hangover, hunger, or exhaustion, U.S. v. Elwood, 51 F.3d 283 (9th Cir. 1995); a suspect's heroin use, Elliott v. Williams, 248 F.3d 1205, 1213 (10th Cir. 2001); a suspect's heroin withdrawal, U.S. v. Kelley, 953 F.2d 562, 565 (9th Cir. 1992); a suspect's orders from his father, N. Mariana Islands v. Doe, 844 F.2d 791 (9th Cir. 1988); or a suspect's unusual susceptibility to suggestion or intimidation, U.S. v. Guerro, 983 F.2d 1001, 1004 (10th Cir. 1993). tl;dr: Because the truth serum was not administered by the government, the confession is admissible in all five scenarios.
There are various ways in which a minor cannot assist a police investigation, and it might be useful to say in what ways any civilian could do so (TV shows notwithstanding). A civilian cannot conduct a custodial interrogation, nor can most of them gather physical evidence (so that a proper evidence log is maintained including relevant information on method of collection, the evidence isn't contaminated etc. – stuff that requires a modicum of training). They cannot execute a search warrant. On the other hand, anyone can provide information that is useful to the police, and it can be done without giving your name or indicating that you are a minor. A minor can serve as a witness at a trial, and it can be helpful to police to know that they have a witness to a crime. A minor can also be used the same way an adult is used, as a confidential informant. There is not a lot of data on that practice given the confidentiality of juvenile records, but there is an article to read (&quot;Juvenile Police Informants: Friendship, Persuasion, and Pretense&quot;. The article does suggest that parental consent may be necessary in some cases (such as wearing a wire to a drug transaction). There is a law in Washington requiring every county's prosecutor to have a local protocol for using informants, and there should be guidelines developed by a work group, however the results (if any) of that group's meetings are not available on the internet. It is possible that there are specific restrictions on the use of minors as informants in some jurisdiction. The article explores the subtle distinction between &quot;informant&quot; and &quot;friend&quot;, applied to minors. California has a law that limits the use of minors – none under 15, those above with approval of a judicial officer and parent, though those 13 and older can be used as bait in a cigarette or alcohol sales case. New York does not have a blanket prohibition against using a minor as an informant, but there may be relevant guidelines for a particular department.