Chimel+v.+California

Summary: In the case of Chimel v. California, a man was to be arrested on crimes of robbery. The police had enough evidence to arrest him with their arrest warrant. The police came and was let into the house by the wife of the criminal. The police waited for the criminal to come home and the arrested him. Then the police used the "basis of lawful arrest" rule as a reason to search the whole house for evidence of his crimes. The courts below the Supreme Court all said that he was guilty and that the items used to find him guilty, were legally obtained on the basis of lawful arrest.

Supreme Court Majority Rule: By precedent of the case United States v. Rabinowitz, the arrest warrant only allows a search to be performed on the arrested and in the area where he may pull out a weapon from. This means that searching the criminal's whole house was an unreasonable search without a warrant. The decision was reversed by the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Minority Rule: The two judges that were against the ruling were Justices Black and White. They said that had the police gone back with another search warrant for evidence, the wife who now knew her husband had committed a crime would have time to hide the evidence. They said that the search was reasonable.

http://www.4lawschool.com/criminal/chimel2.htm

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