StudiGuide 16: Search and Seizure Law in California

Study Guide for the California Police Academy (P.O.S.T.) Written Examination

This StudiGuide course provides a practice review-testing resource for police academy cadets (based on the state of California’s Commission on Peace Officer Standard and Training 'POST' requirements) to help understand and pass the POST written examinations.

RECOGNIZE:

· constitutional protections guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment

· standing and how it applies to an expectation of privacy

· probable cause to search and its link between Fourth Amendment protections and search and seizure law

· how the exclusionary rule applies to a peace officer’s collection of evidence

· how probable cause serves as a basis for obtaining a search warrant

· the necessary conditions for securing an area pending issuance of a search warrant

· the elements for compliance with the knock and notice requirements when serving a search warrant

· the application of the Nexus Rule while conducting an authorized search

· why a plain view seizure does not constitute a search

· the legal requirements for seizure of items in plain view

· the conditions and circumstances where warrantless searches and seizures are considered reasonable and legal

· the scope and necessary conditions for conducting the following types of warrantless searches:

• cursory/frisk/pat search

• consent searches

• searches pursuant to exigent circumstances

• searches incident to arrest

• probation/parole searches

· the scope and necessary conditions for conducting the following types of motor vehicle searches

• probable cause searches

• seizures of items in plain view

• protective searches

• consent searches

• searches incident to custodial arrest

• instrumentality searches

· the scope and necessary conditions for conducting a vehicle inventory

· the legal framework establishing a peace officer’s authority to seize physical evidence from a subject’s body with a warrant, and without a warrant

· the conditions under which a peace officer may use reasonable force to prevent a subject form swallowing or attempting to swallow evidence

· the conditions necessary for legally obtaining blood samples

· the conditions for legally obtaining nonintrusive bodily evidence such as Fingerprints, and Handwriting samples

IDENTIFY:

· the concept of reasonable expectation of privacy

· the time limitations for serving a search warrant

· the importance of a peace officer’s neutral role during an identification procedure

· officer actions before, during, and after an identification procedure to prevent impermissible law enforcement suggestiveness when conducting a:

• Field show-up

• Photographic spread

• Custodial lineup

Selected information from this written examination will also appear on your Mid-Course and End-of-Course Proficiency Tests.