Walk It Through: Someone Else Let Them In
You are staying at a friend's place. You did not open the door.
You have been staying at a friend's place for a week. There is a knock, and you are the only one home.
A practice walkthrough, not a prediction of any real stop. Legal information, not legal advice.
Words this turns on
Terms with a legal meaning that is narrower than the everyday one. Each links to the definition and the authority behind it.
- Administrative warrantA document issued by an agency rather than by a court. An immigration detainer and a warrant for arrest of an alien are both signed inside the agency, by an officer or a supervisor.
- Apparent authorityA search is valid where officers reasonably believed the person consenting had authority over the place, even if that belief turns out to be wrong.
- Co-occupant consentOne resident can consent to a search of shared space. Where a second resident is physically present and expressly objects, that objection defeats the consent as to that person.
- ConsentVoluntary agreement to a search, judged on the totality of the circumstances. Valid consent removes the need for a warrant and for probable cause.
- CurtilageThe area immediately around a home that is treated as part of the home for Fourth Amendment purposes. A porch is the standard example.
- Exclusionary ruleEvidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment is generally inadmissible in a criminal prosecution. The case that applied the rule to the states came out of Ohio.
- Exigent circumstancesAn emergency that excuses the warrant requirement, such as an immediate risk to life, a suspect in flight, or evidence about to be destroyed.
- Knock and announceThe requirement that officers executing a warrant announce their presence and purpose and wait a reasonable time before forcing entry. Ohio states it by statute as well.
- No duty to retreatA person has no duty to retreat before using force in self defence anywhere they lawfully are, and a court or jury may not consider the possibility of retreat in deciding whether the force was justified.
- Reasonable expectation of privacyWhether a person expected privacy in a place or thing and whether society recognises that expectation. It is the threshold question for whether something counts as a search at all.
- The self defence presumptionA person is presumed to have acted in self defence when using force against somebody unlawfully entering, or having unlawfully entered, their residence or occupied vehicle. Ohio also puts the burden on the state to disprove self defence once the issue is raised.