SEARCH OF AUTOMOBILE WITHOUT WARRANT--WHEN REASONABLE

Authors

Abstract

The enforcement of the National Prohibition Act has been responsible for raising the search and seizure question to a new height of importance. By Section 26 of that act, any officer discovering any person in the transportation of intoxicating liquors is to seize all such liquors being transported contrary to law. Obviously to secure a search warrant is impossible in the very nature of things the automobile, adapted to speed, is gone long before a warrant could be secured. And the employment of the automobile in the transportation of liquor is carried to such an extent that search and seizure to some degree is necessary if the eighteenth amendment is to be effectively enforced. Such search and seizure cannot of course be carried beyond the fourth amendment which provides that "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated. and no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized."

Recommended Citation

SEARCH OF AUTOMOBILE WITHOUT WARRANT--WHEN REASONABLE, 23 Mich. L. Rev. 891 (1925).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol23/iss8/7