Aaaaand, ANOTHER cop question

[Alpo]

I'm watching the cop show. The cop is undercover in the mob. He sneaks into the mob boss's bedroom and gets in the safe and steals an important piece of evidence. Then when all the other cops come in and arrest all the mobsters, the boss announces that he has the best lawyer in town, and he is going to walk. And the cop pulls out the valuable piece of evidence and says "not when I show them this".

 

Now if the cop was not undercover, and they wanted to search the mobster's house for this important piece of evidence, they would need a search warrant. So says the Fourth Amendment.

 

But - at least on TV cop shows - they don't need any warrant when they're searching when they are undercover.

 

How does that work?

 

I was thinking that possibly they get the warrant before they send the guy undercover. Then they would have a warrant which would cover their search. But I thought they had to serve the warrant when they did the search, and he's not serving a warrant he's basically burglarizing the place.

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

Sealed warrant/Sneak and Peak?

[Father Kit Cool Gun Garth]

@Alpo,

https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/privacy-and-police-undercover-work

[Rip Snorter]

Fruit of a poisoned tree - search  the term.  Shows are just that, entertainment.

[LawMan Mark, SASS #57095L]

Very few exceptions to the need for a warrant.  Being undercover isn't one of them.  Being in a TV show is.

[Hashknife Cowboy]

The Cop will need a good lawyer, very bad search.   Besides I never knew of a undercover officer who actually served a search warrant.

[Texas Joker]

Undercover does the humint work so the warrant can be written to FIND the evidence. 

[LawMan Mark, SASS #57095L]

2 hours ago, Hashknife Cowboy said:

The Cop will need a good lawyer, very bad search.   Besides I never knew of a undercover officer who actually served a search warrant.

They're usually the one wearing the black balaclava during the raid.

[Cyrus Cassidy #45437]

3 hours ago, LawMan Mark, SASS #57095L said:

Very few exceptions to the need for a warrant.  Being undercover isn't one of them.  Being in a TV show is.

 

^^^^ This ^^^^