If you’re suspected of a crime in Utah, officers will do everything they can to find evidence against you. That often includes searching your property, but unless you give them permission, they need to obtain a search warrant from a judge to do so.
Judges don’t issue search warrants freely. There are certain requirements that need to be met first. If your lawyer finds out that the warrant was issued in error, any evidence that police find cannot be used against you.
When the supervising officer is looking at the affidavit they are checking three things: that police have already made reasonable efforts to gather information, that investigators have already done a threat assessment, and that there is good enough reason for a warrant instead of just having police continue gathering evidence.
If the supervising officer determines that a search warrant may not be necessary at this moment, the affidavit may not even make it to the judge.
There are two basic types of search warrants that the judge can issue. One of them is called a “knock and announce warrant.” It is exactly what it sounds like. In order to carry out the search, an officer needs to knock and make sure you know that they’re on the premises.
The other is a “no-knock warrant.” With this type, police don’t have to alert you in any way before entering your home. They can literally break your door down and walk right in.
Regardless of whether the warrant is a “knock and announce” or a “no-knock” warrant, police are still required to serve you a copy of the warrant in readable form, which you can show your lawyer for your legal defense.
Both types of warrants are typically done during the day, unless the judge specifies that it needs to be done at night for some reason.
Being served with a no-knock warrant is an unpleasant experience that feels like your privacy is being violated. That is why under Utah law, there is specific language that the investigating officer needs to include in the affidavit for this type of warrant to be issued:
If the judge determines from this information that a no-knock warrant is necessary, then it will be issued.
In some cases, police don’t need a warrant at all to search your home. This can happen if they have probable cause to believe you are going to destroy evidence or if they have reasonable suspicion that someone’s physical safety is at risk.
One famous example is the Ruby Franke case. One of her kids escaped the home of Franke’s business partner Jodi Hildebrandt and ran to a nearby house, asking for water. When the neighbors saw how malnourished the boy was — along with some markings that hinted at abuse — they called police.
Officers ended up searching Hildebrandt’s home without a warrant. They were able to conduct a warrantless search because the condition the child was in led them to suspect that other children were also in the home, and they were in similar danger.
If police come to your door with a warrant to search the premises, the only thing you can do is let them enter and take what they need. Don’t fight them on the spot, no matter how tempting it might be. Doing so will not help your case.
In fact, you might be hurting your chances because you can face obstruction of justice. This charge can range from a class A misdemeanor to a first-degree felony depending on the severity of the crime being investigated. That’s on top of what you might be facing as a result of whatever evidence the search warrant uncovers.
The main thing you should do is stay calm, get a copy of the search warrant, and make sure your lawyer also sees it.
While a lawyer cannot stop a search warrant from happening, they might be able to prevent some legal harm that can come to you if evidence is uncovered.
The way this works is your attorney requests the affidavit that the warrant is based on. If there is anything fishy about how police conducted the investigation, a good lawyer can sniff it out and make sure any evidence uncovered from the search is not admissible in court.
So when the time comes for the case to possibly go to trial, some evidence that might have hurt your case never gets seen by a jury and is not taken into account by the judge.
If you need a good lawyer who can assist you with your search warrant, look no further than the attorneys at Brown, Bradshaw & Moffat: Mark Moffat, James Bradshaw, Ann Taliaferro, Michael Holje, Kristin Wilson, Michael Meszaros and Staci Visser. They have been helping people like you navigate the legal system for over twenty years. They would love to assist you with whatever you are facing.
To get started, tell us about your case, and one of our lawyers will reach out to you.
