Discuss Steps Needed for Law Enforcement to Obtain Arrest Warrants

Prerequisites for Arrest Warrant
Institution
Date
Introduction
According to the fourth amendment, the constitution allows a search, arrest or seizure to be conducted pursuant to execution of a duly signed warrant. An arrest warrant is thus an official document signed by a judged or a magistrate authorizing law enforcers to arrest an individual or persons named in the warrant. It details the crime in which the arrest is made and also specify the manner in which the arrest may be made. It may also determine bail conditions which the suspect may need to meet before regaining freedom. This paper analyses the requirements needed for law enforcers to obtain arrest warrants. The paper will also detail a briefcase of Birmingham City, Utah v. Charles Stuart, Shayne Taylor, and Sandra Taylor. [547 U.S.398 (2006).
Discussion
For a law enforcement officer to be given an arrest warrant, the officer must be filled a criminal complaint and supported it with a cause affidavit. In the affidavit, the officer must clearly state sufficient facts and establish who, what, when and where to support the alleged offense for which the warrant is sought. Before making application, the officer needs to appear before a neutral judge and get a sworn detailed statement or an affidavit.
There has to be probable cause to inform such a request. Probable cause exists when circumstances and facts within the officers knowledge give a reasonable belief that crime has happened or is about to occur. This information could be from police informants or any reliable sources (Friesen, 2006).Though it’s worth to note that such statements cannot be verified by the magistrate. When the only evidence is the officer’s suspicion of a crime, then probable cause is deemed not to exist.
To validate the probable cause and support the warrant, the officer swears an affidavit to attest to the best of his/ her knowledge that the information is accurate. The oath can be written or oral, but the officer must swear that no intentionally false statement has been submitted and that no statement has been made in reckless disregard of the truth in order to support the affidavit (Friesen, 2006).
The constitution through the fourth amendment requires that the arrest warrant precisely describes and give details of the person to be arrested and that probable cause must be offered by a sworn officer (Amar, 1994).The warrant must have explicit details of the suspect such that the officer handling the permit can ascertain and identify the persons designated in the warrant without much struggle. To enable the officer to distinguish the suspect in a population, the warrant must describe the individual with enough particularity. Vague descriptions that are not specific are not admissible. For example, presenting a probable cause that issues a description like, ‘lady robbed at gunpoint by a dreadlocked slender, man with brown teeth and of medium height' as a description to arrest Mr. Sean then the affidavit will not be given on ground that the description is ge...