Legal Analysis of Police Search,Write a two-page (max) paper analyzing the fact pattern presented below. Please use federal law, your own state law, or military law. Your analysis should include application of the topics covered during the past seven weeks. For example, search and seizure, search warrants, execution of warrants, exceptions to the warrant requirement, exclusionary rule, Miranda rights, and the right against self-incrimination. Do not restate the facts in your paper, but rather identify the issues, analyze, and provide your legal reasoning. Ensure your citations are in APA format Please see the grading rubric, which will be used to grade this assignment. Chris is a police officer with the local Centerville Police Department. She is in plain clothes and knocked on the front door of Steve’s house and asked if she could enter to enforce a valid warrant. The warrant was a search warrant issued by Judge Wells from the Centerville District Court. Judge Wells is a retired state police trooper from the state police barracks in Centerville. The warrant indicated that “the first floor of Steve’s house will be searched for a gun used in connection with a robbery and jewelry, which was stolen.” While searching the first floor of Steve’s house, Officer Chris smelled what she thought was gun powder emanating from the second floor. Officer Chris immediately walked upstairs and found a gun at the tops of the stairs. She went to confiscate the gun and while doing so noticed a note attached to the gun with an address on it. The address was a known location for stolen jewelry to be pawned. During the search, Steve told Officer Chris that, “I do not know what you are here for, because I did not rob Grubb’s jewelry store.” Officer Chris asked Steve to go to the police station and Steve agreed. As they walked into the police station, Judge Wells yelled, “is that the person who robbed Grubb’s jewelry store?” Steve replied, “I told Officer Chris already, I did not rob Grubb’s jewelry store.”

Legal Analysis of Police Search

There are several legal issues at play in this scenario. First, let’s address the issue of the search warrant. A search warrant is a court order that allows law enforcement to search a specific location for specific items (American Bar Association, 2018). In order for a search warrant to be valid, there must be probable cause, which means that there must be reasonable grounds to believe that the items being sought are likely to be found at the location being searched (Cornell Law School, 2018). In this case, the search warrant was issued by Judge Wells, a retired state police trooper, and it specifically stated that the search was for a gun and stolen jewelry. This satisfies the probable cause requirement for a valid search warrant. Next, we can consider the actions of Officer Chris during the search. When she smelled what she thought was gun powder emanating from the second floor, she had probable cause to believe that there was a gun present in the house. This gave her the legal authority to enter the second floor and seize the gun, as it was a item specifically listed in the search warrant. Additionally, when she noticed the note with the address of a known location for pawning stolen jewelry, she had probable cause to believe that this was related to the stolen jewelry that was also listed in the search warrant (Cornell Law School, 2018). Cont…