The Fourth Amendment protects people in the United States from unreasonable searches. Officers need legal justification to conduct searches of people or personal property. Police searches are subject to strict legal limits. Inappropriate searches can violate people’s rights. Those violations can influence the best response to pending criminal charges.
Police officers sometimes search vehicles or residences without justification. A search of a person’s body can feel particularly invasive. People arrested after stop-and-frisk encounters may have questions. Some of them may wonder if officers violated their rights. When can officers legally search a person’s body?
After an arrest
Many bodily searches occur after an arrest. Police officers check people for drugs or weapons. Searches are part of the process of taking people into state custody.
When there are safety concerns
The law limits pre-arrest searches of a person’s body. A stop-and-frisk search is legal when officers believe there could be a dangerous weapon.
The law permits searches during encounters in public to check for a weapon. Suspecting someone of possessing drugs is not justification for a bodily search. Being present in a high-crime neighborhood is not an adequate reason to search a person.
Some police officers ask for permission to search people to bypass these rules. People need to know their rights to avoid mistakes that put them at a legal disadvantage later.
Learning about rules for law enforcement can be beneficial for those facing criminal charges. Evidence found through illegal searches may not be usable during a criminal trial. Defendants may need to discuss what happened with their criminal defense attorney, and that’s okay.