232. Search and Seizure Basics

So we're going to start with...

We'll call it a hypothetical.

It's not much of one.

So the police receive a report that someone is growing marijuana on a Kentucky farm.

I tell my students this.

If you're in civil law, it all comes from the railroads.

And in criminal law, it all comes from marijuana or drugs in general.

But a lot of marijuana, a lot of your laws and your rights have been developed through marijuana.

Marijuana cases, and this is one of them.

So the police, they hear someone's growing marijuana on a Kentucky farm.

They drive down to the farm.

They drive past the house that's on the farm, and they reach a locked gate.

And on the locked gate, it says, no trespassing.

So, of course, they turn around and go back.

Now, they don't do that.

They park their vehicle, can't get through the gate with their car, so they just walk around it, basically go over the fence, and now they're past the gate, they're past the no trespassing sign.

And they keep walking.

And they walk for several hundred yards onto the property, Someone off in the distance sees them and yells, Hey, no hunting is allowed.

Come back up here.

At which point they yell back, We're not hunters.

We're the police.

And they keep walking.

And they walk for more than a mile.

And after walking for a mile still on the property, they find a field of marijuana.

They have no warrant.