The police have set limits on their ability to search your home unless they present you with a search warrant or obtain your consent to conduct a search. Even with a search warrant or your consent, the police must limit their search to the scope of the warrant or your consent. If the police violate this to gather evidence in a case against you or a loved one, the search can be challenged by a search warrant lawyer in Brampton at Manbir Sodhi Law.
Search Warrants Lawyer in Brampton
How Can a Search Warrant Be Challenged?
If the police have presented you with a search warrant, it will detail the exactly what they are allowed to search. If they extend their search outside of this, then the search is not considered a legal search. The police would have to obtain a new search warrant that also included any areas they wanted to search outside of the scope of the original search warrant PRIOR to searching them.
For instance, the police arrive at your house with a warrant to search your garage and the space above the garage for the alleged production of drugs. The police conduct the search of the garage and space above the garage and do not find anything. However, they open a door in the garage that goes down into a basement under your home.
The police search the basement and find you are indeed producing drugs and seize everything in the basement. However, since the scope of their original search warrant did not include your basement, your Brampton search warrant lawyer can argue this in court and have any evidence collected excluded and made inadmissible in court. Since the police and Crown no longer have this evidence against you, in all likelihood, your case and charges could be dropped.
Another way a search can be challenged is if you did not consent to the search. For example, the police show up at your home and ask if they can come in to ask you some questions relating to an alleged robbery.
At this point, the police can only ask you questions and can only visually search the home in the location where you have allowed them to enter. If you leave the room to go answer your smartphone and come back to find the police going through your closet, bedrooms, dresser or other areas, anything they find can be made inadmissible in court.
What If the Search Warrant Was Valid?
Even in cases where the search warrant is valid, there are still ways to challenge the search, like the search was conducted in an unreasonable manner. This means the police did something that is not considered reasonable, like showing up in the middle of the night to search your home.
If you believe the police exceeded the scope of a search warrant or a search you consented to, you will want to arrange a FREE consultation to speak to a search warrant lawyer in Brampton at Manbir Sodhi Law as soon as possible.