Can a Presidential pardon nullify a search warrant? Where the US government has seized private property pursuant to a search warrant in a criminal investigation, what would happen to that property if the President were to pardon the suspect(s) under investigation? Must it be returned immediately (perhaps before investigators have had an opportunity to examine it), or could the investigators continue their examination unimpeded? To put it another way, does the pardoning of a suspect necessarily halt all investigative activity into the pardoned crimes and effectively nullify any extant search warrants?
If the item is contraband, it will not be returned. Despite the pardon, the item may also be subject to civil forfeiture (for example if the item is proceeds from a drug sale). The item may also be kept as evidence in a different criminal or civil case, either involving the accused person, or for the very same crime involving another party. There is one condition under which an item taken under a search warrant must be returned immediately, and that is if a competent judge orders the immediate return of the item, which would require the pardoned person to petition for release of the item (and that takes time). The warrant is still valid (assuming it was legal to start with), and a pardon does not render a search warrant illegal.
Not at all. Under the Fourth Amendment, your house is where &quot;privacy expectations are most heightened,&quot; and it is therefore generally the most difficult place to obtain a warrant to search. California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 213 (1986). But the courts treat vehicles very differently. Because of &quot;the pervasive regulation of vehicles capable of traveling on the public highways,&quot; and because a vehicle &quot;can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in which the warrant must be sought,&quot; courts hold that the societal interests in enforcing the law generally outweigh any personal interest in privacy. California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 393 (1985). So while the general rule is that if an officer wants to search someone's home, he must first establish probable cause and then obtain a warrant, a search of a vehicle merely requires that the officer establish probable cause first -- no warrant necessary.
Your attorney can help you answer those questions, if necessary. Generally, you cannot know for certain. Mass. criminal procedure rule 6 covers arrest warrants – the Superior court can issue an arrest warrant. That warrant must be "signed" by the issuing official, will have the name or other reasonable means of identifying the subject, and the offense charged. An electronic signature is a signature. If the arresting officer does not have the warrant at the time of arrest, the arrest may proceed anyhow, and if he has the warrant, he shall on request show it to the defendant as soon as possible. If the officer does not have the warrant on him, he shall inform the defendant that a warrant has been issued. There is no practical way to look at a warrant and determine that is is a real warrant as opposed to a fake document created by thugs. There is no statute under which a person can resist arrest until they are satisfied that the arrest is by a legitimate officer and that the document was properly issued by the court. If there was no proper warrant, the arrest will probably be found unlawful and you will be set free until a proper warrant is issued. It would be unlawful for thugs to take you (impersonating an officer is a crime), and that is as far as the law goes. Ch. 267 of Massachusetts General Laws lays out the law regarding warrants, and those laws focus on the conditions for legally issuing a warrant, not for convincing a person that a warrant, search or arrest is legitimate. You may certainly attempt to confirm that the warrant and officer are real, but you cannot resist the search or arrest if you are not satisfied.
Nobody can say exactly what happens. I would assume that everyone in the house would be considered a witness. They might ask your friend "did you ever see your roommate carrying computers, monitors etc. into your apartment"; something like that would be likely. It's highly unlikely that she would be treated as a suspect since she doesn't work where things have been stolen. If the police comes with a search warrant, I would expect that the search warrant would extend to the roommate's room and all shared areas, like the kitchen, a common living room and so on. It's unlikely that a search warrant would allow searching your friend's room. She might want to move anything that she doesn't want the police to see (like private photo albums) into her own room. She should definitely move anything that she doesn't want the police to see (like drugs, goods that she stole, illegal weapons) into her own room. And obviously they can search your room without warrant and without your permission; they are not allowed to, but unless you have a locked steel door, they can. That would be a violation of your privacy, and any results of the search couldn't be used as evidence against you , but I think they could be used as evidence against your friend.
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 is a potentially infinite regress of questions regarding the constitutionality of restrictions imposed under these "emergency" circumstances. The basic legal principle is clearly established: laws restricting fundamental rights are subject to strict scrutiny. The specific details of a particular law and surrounding circumstances have yet to be discovered by the courts. If it is necessary to the purpose of saving lives that meetings of more than 10 people be prohibited, then the "compelling interest" test probably has been satisfied. That is basically a medical question, and the courts have a limited interest in scientific controversies, instead they are interested in whether people who make legal decisions do so rationally (is it reasonable to think that such limits would accomplish that compelling government end). Is it reasonable to think that restrictions lasting two months are necessary? The Black Death lasted at least 4 years. In the current circumstances (very limited hard knowledge this disease), it's hard to say what government actions could not be excused based on necessity. Summary execution is, at least in the current knowledge context, probably not going to pass strict scrutiny. As already explained in other thread on the topic, there is no "churches are above the law" constitutional provision. The appropriate question in the Florida case is not about the First Amendment, it is about the Due Process clauses – is the arrest lawful? We will, no doubt, see. On the face of it, he violated the law, so he can be arrested. I understand that there is a team poking holes in the order.
I will assume that your question pertains to the United States. In other jurisdictions, different rules could apply. Context matters. The usual penalty for spoliation of evidence (the technical term for what you describe) in a civil case is a judicial determination or jury instruction that the evidence destroyed would have established the relevant part of the other side's case had it not been destroyed. In all of these cases, your failure to take affirmative action to preserve the evidence once you knew that there was a bona fide likelihood that you would be sued could be held against you by making an adverse determination that the evidence would have been unfavorable to you and possibly also money sanctions. You could not be held in contempt of court for this if these events happened before a case was commenced. In a criminal case, where you are a defendant, you have an absolute right to not incriminate yourself and do not have to take affirmative action to preserve evidence, although this right is limited to criminal cases and your failure to preserve evidence can still be held against you in a civil case. Certainly, in situation 4 you are a potential criminal defendant, so the 5th Amendment protection would apply. In situations 1 and 2, where the precautions were not put in place to facilitate a crime, the 5th Amendment would protect you if you were a potential criminal defendant, but suppose that you are a bystander like a third party ISP representative. If you were a third party, at a minimum you would have to be put on notice of the police need for the evidence, would probably have had to have had the police ask you for the evidence, and of course, would have to be aware that the destruction was imminent and have the power to prevent that destruction. If all those conditions were present, you might be guilty of obstruction of justice (there are precedents for inaction knowing of the consequences in the fact of a police question amounting to obstruction of justice). In situation 3, this kind of action pretty much amounts to being an accessory to some crime before the fact (unless someone was successfully deceived by a very elaborate story) and would likely make anyone involved part of a conspiracy to commit the crime that the destruction of the papers would facilitate. While the papers themselves might have been evidence of a crime or civil wrong, the destruction of the papers might itself be considered part of the crime, regardless of what could be established regarding the actual content of the papers.
Yes. The President can pardon everyone (with the possible exception of himself) of crimes, and can pardon people by category rather than by name. But, the President can only pardon federal crimes that have been committed and are mentioned in the pardon. However, the federal crimes do not have to have resulted in convictions or even charges to be pardonable. Many mass pardons of this type were made after the U.S. Civil War. Another notable mass pardon was of draft dodgers after the Vietnam War was over by President Carter. The President cannot (in the opinion of many, it hasn't been authoritatively resolved) pardon himself. The President cannot pardon a state or local crime or a crime against the law of another country. The President cannot use the pardon power to eliminate the right of one person to sue another person. The President cannot pardon a crime that was not committed at the time that the pardon was issued.