Comply if There Is a Warrant and Be Respectful
Video Transcribed: Okay. So what do I do when the cops show up to serve a warrant at my house? Hello, I’m Ty Smith, an Oklahoma City area attorney with Wirth Law, and the short answer is to comply with the warrant.
Well, let’s make sure they’ve actually jumped through all the necessary hoops before you just let them in your house, which is an important point because you should not let the police into your house unless they have a warrant. The Constitution protects your castle, your house, and your apartment, doesn’t have to be your house. In the place where you reside, you have the strongest expectation of privacy in your home. And so if the police show up and they just want to have a look around, don’t do it.
Don’t let them do it. There’s nothing good that can come of it. Even if you have nothing to hide, they might find something. And just don’t do it. Just don’t do it. So if they show up, first off with the warrant, first off, these warrants can only be served between the hours of 6:00 AM and 10:00 PM unless there’s some good reason for them not to, like it’s very timely that we have to go search for this thing here now because it’s not going to be there later. And as I said in previous videos, remember a search warrant, they’re there to look for evidence of criminality. And one of the first things that are going to happen, they’re going to knock on your door and announce that they are police officers or whoever, they’re agents of the law. And they’re going to say they’re serving a warrant.
Now, it needs to be very clear when you answer the door that you do not consent to the search of the home unless this warrant says what it says it does. So they’ll knock on the door, answer the door, and tell them you do not consent to the search unless there’s a warrant. They’ll hand you a copy of the warrant. You get to look over it. At that point, let them in and let them search the area that it says to search. Because if you say no after they’ve served you with a warrant, they can break down your door. They can break into your house to execute the search warrant. And then your house has been searched, and your door has a hole in it or is off the hinges, which that’s not a desirable outcome to this. So after you’ve seen that they have a valid search warrant, go along with it. Go along with it.
Now, once they are inside, they can only search the areas that are listed on the warrant. They can only search those given areas, and they can only search for things that are listed on the warrant. Now, there are some exceptions to this, however, like if there’s evidence of criminality that’s in plain sight. Let’s say in your son’s room, the police have received a tip-off that there is stolen property or something. And they have evidence there’s stolen property in your son’s room. So they’re going to go search there. But on your coffee room table in your living room, you have about six kilos of methamphetamine. Yeah, that’s in plain sight. They can take that. That’s not what they came here for, and that’s not where the evidence of criminality was going to be. But that’s in plain sight.
Thanks to the plain sight doctrine, plain view doctrine, they can take that and use that against you now. Now, after all of this is said and done, after they’ve executed their search warrant, you will be presented with a copy of the warrant and a list of the things that have been taken into police custody. And if you were not home for all of this, then all this will be posted on your now hanging off the hinges door. Because as I said, they’ll break down your door if you’re not home.
If you would like to speak about this further, or if you have further questions about this as far as how to handle the situation, please feel free to reach out to me. As I said, I’m Ty Smith, a criminal defense lawyer in Oklahoma. I’m at theoklahomacityattorney.com, and I’d love to speak to you about this.
