Police's Ability to Search with no Warrant:Consent to Search Exception

Consent Search
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Consent Search
In most cases, when law enforcement officers intend to conduct a search, they must have search warrants, which give them the authority to do so. However, there are exceptions whereby, the person whose property is to be searched voluntarily allows the process to proceed. In such an arrangement, the law enforcement officers do not have to inform the person that their consent is entirely voluntary. However, the officers must not under any circumstances coerce people into granting consent. If it is proved that coercion was employed, evidence acquired thereof may not be admissible in a court of law. I do not support consent searches because people might not clearly understand their rights, officers might use trickery and coercion, and the process might be exploitative.
Many people do not clearly understand the law, especially when it comes to cooperating with police officers. Regarding consent search, for instance, many may not understand that they have the right to deny consent or even refuse to talk to the officers (Bergman & Berman, 2022). As such, they may be inclined to believe that when an officer asks to carry out a search, then they have no option but to comply. According to Bergman and Berman (2022), the general rule is that, a search must only be conducted where privacy is not infringed upon. Therefore, if people feel that a search will compromise their privacy, then they have the right to deny consent. However, many do not understand this. Scales are a bit tilted in favor of the law enforcement officers when it comes to a consent search. To begin with, officers are not required by the law to positively identify themselves. Again, the law does not require them to inform the persons on whose property the search is being conducted that they have the right to refuse. Moreover, many citizens may not understand that they can order officers to stop in the middle of the search or grant a limited consent (Hess et al., 2022). While on the same, many people feel intimidated by the presence of police officers and may regard a search request as an order (Bergman & Berman, 2022). In such a situation, the person feels constrained to consent to a search without much ado.
Consent search may not be a plausible approach because officers could use tricks to constrain people to allow them to have their way. Generally, any evidence collected in a situation where trickery and coercion were used is not admissible in a court of law (Bergman & Berman, 2022). However, it might prove an uphill task for a defendant to prove it to a judge unless there were witnesses present. More often than not, judges tend to be inclined towar...