How Your Criminal Defense Lawyer Can Help Suppress Evidence
ShareIf you are being accused of a crime you are going to want to have the best legal help on your side. That is because a lawyer can help you with things that you are not even aware of, such as suppressing evidence that was not obtained by police correctly. Here are some ways that they can suppress evidence in court.
Proving No Warrant Or Probable Cause
The easiest way to have evidence dismissed is to prove that there was no warrant obtained in order to search your property. The police cannot just go around and search people's property without having a warrant — which is why the system is in place, such that they must go to a judge and explain why they feel a search warrant is necessary.
However, police also have the right to search someone's property if they have probable cause and there is an immediate need. For example, if someone is pulled over for a traffic stop and the police officer sees something in the car that can give them probable cause to search the vehicle, they can use this to justify the search.
Your lawyer can easily prove there is no warrant if one does not exist. However, proving there is no probable cause is harder to do. Your lawyer will need to demonstrate that the situation did not give the officer a reason to search your property.
Proving The Warrant Was Problematic
Getting a warrant from a judge does not automatically mean that the warrant is valid. That's why a criminal defense lawyer will attack the warrant itself to show that it is problematic. This is done by trying to show how the reasoning given to a judge was misleading or incorrect, and that information was used to obtain a warrant in an illegal way.
Proving The Scope Of A Warrant Was Exceeded
A warrant doesn't give the police the right to search every part of your property just because they have a warrant. There is a scope of the warrant that must be followed, and it's possible that they exceeded the scope.
For example, if you are accused of stealing a car that is in your garage, the police can request a warrant to search your garage. The car being in the garage will be quite obvious at a glance, and the warrant would not give justification to look inside cabinets and other places where a car would not logically fit. Proving that the scope of the warrant was violated can have the evidence suppressed in court.
To learn more, contact a criminal defense attorney in your area.