What Normally Allows a Police Officer to Enter and Search Your Home
The Fourth Amendment requires that police officers have a warrant to enter and search a home. The goal of this provision is to protect privacy and offer freedom from unreasonable intrusions by the government.
Generally, there are a few exceptions. Warrantless searches are permitted when a person gives consent to a home search. It can happen if a police officer already has the right to be on the person’s property and sees evidence of a crime. Police also have the authority to search and seize evidence if they are conducting a valid arrest in a person’s home. Another exception is the “emergency aid” case, when an officer sees a resident collapsing for apparent medical reasons from the window and can run into the house to administer aid.
NorthJersey.com
Months after the coronavirus surged through the state s prison population, county jails in North Jersey are off to a slow start inoculating thousands of inmates and immigration detainees as supplies of the vaccine remain limited.
Officials in Bergen, Passaic and Morris counties this week said they re still in the planning stages of inoculations. The Essex and Hudson county jails have administered shots to eligible members of their populations, though so far they have reached only a fraction of their inmates and staffs. We have been very proactive, and we think it s important, Phil Alagia, the chief of staff for Essex County Executive Joseph DiVencenzo, said last week. It keeps our officers safe, and the people that get released ultimately go back to the community.
| Updated: 9:01 p.m.
Last legislative session, Rep. Stephanie Pitcher wrangled together groups from across the criminal justice system to solve what she sees as a longstanding flaw in the way Utah treats defendants before trial, when their guilt or innocence hasn’t yet been established in court.
Her problem was this: Why should relatively low-risk defendants sit behind bars
for weeks or months awaiting trial
because they’re poor, while rich people can simply post bail and walk free?
It’s a question that has prompted a bail reform movement across the nation in recent years, but also one that has bedeviled states given the high stakes involved, with some debates pitting public safety versus personal liberty. So it astonished some last year when Pitcher, a Salt Lake City Democrat whose full-time job is as a prosecutor, managed to assemble a broadly supported reform package and to win approval from the Republican-dominated Legislature.