Notes
- Young and another v Minister of Safety and Security and others 2005 (2) SACR 437 (SE)
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In Young and another v Minister of Safety and Security and others 2005 (2) SACR 437 (SE), sometimes called Young v Minister of Safety and Security, an important case in South African criminal procedure, Young ran a business supplying and distributing adult videos and DVDs, and sought order setting aside two search warrants, issued in terms of section 21 of the Criminal Procedure Act (CPA), and the seizure of certain articles.
Young contended that the search and seizure was unlawful, as it was conducted after sunset.
The court held that section 21(3)(a) of the CPA was intended to ensure that the privacy of people's homes was not invaded at unreasonable hours. This did not mean, however, that a search commenced during daytime became unlawful when the sun set; neither could it be said that the fact that the third respondent had left the premises to fetch certain equipment required for the copying of computer files, and had returned after night-fall, constituted a second and unauthorized search.
The application for the setting aside of the search warrants and the seizure of articles was therefore dismissed.
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The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. It prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. In addition, it sets requirements for issuing warrants: warrants must be issued by a judge or magistrate, justified by probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and must particularly describe the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to confiscate any evidence they find. In most countries, a search warrant cannot be issued in aid of civil process.
In United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which police authorities have reason to obtain a warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal or the issuing of a search warrant. There is no universally accepted definition or formulation for probable cause. One traditional definition, which comes from the U.S. Supreme Court's 1964 decision Beck v. Ohio, is when "whether at [the moment of arrest] the facts and circumstances within [an officer's] knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information [are] sufficient to warrant a prudent [person] in believing that [a suspect] had committed or was committing an offense."
A citizen's arrest is an arrest made by a private citizen – that is, a person who is not acting as a sworn law-enforcement official. In common law jurisdictions, the practice dates back to medieval England and the English common law, in which sheriffs encouraged ordinary citizens to help apprehend law breakers.
Search and seizure is a procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems by which police or other authorities and their agents, who, suspecting that a crime has been committed, commence a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence found in connection to the crime.
In the United States, the plain view doctrine is an exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement that allows an officer to seize evidence and contraband that are found in plain view during a lawful observation. The doctrine is also regularly used by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers while screening persons and property at U.S. airports.
Warrantless searches are searches and seizures conducted without court-issued search warrants.
National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Another v Minister of Justice and Others is a decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa which struck down the laws prohibiting consensual sexual activities between men. Basing its decision on the Bill of Rights in the Constitution – and in particular its explicit prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation – the court unanimously ruled that the crime of sodomy, as well as various other related provisions of the criminal law, were unconstitutional and therefore invalid.
A Criminal Justice Police Custody and security officer, formerly known as a “turnkey”or “PCSO”, is a uniformed non-warranted of officer of a Scottish police force. Paid by and employed by the Scotish Police Authority.
Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless seizure of evidence which is in plain view. The discovery of the evidence does not have to be inadvertent, although that is a characteristic of most legitimate plain-view seizures. The opinion clarified the plain view doctrine of the Court's Fourth Amendment analysis.
The powers of the police in England and Wales are defined largely by statute law, with the main sources of power being the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the Police Act 1996. This article covers the powers of police officers of territorial police forces only, but a police officer in one of the UK's special police forces can utilise extended jurisdiction powers outside of their normal jurisdiction in certain defined situations as set out in statute. In law, police powers are given to constables. All police officers in England and Wales are "constables" in law whatever their rank. Certain police powers are also available to a limited extent to police community support officers and other non warranted positions such as police civilian investigators or designated detention officers employed by some police forces even though they are not constables.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1997 is an act of the Parliament of South Africa which dealt with the consequences of the Constitutional Court's ruling in S v Makwanyane in which capital punishment was declared to be unconstitutional. The act repealed the laws allowing for the death penalty and amended various other laws referring to death sentences or capital offences. It also established a procedure by which existing death sentences could be converted to prison sentences, and fixed minimum sentences for certain serious crimes. The act came into force on 13 November 1998, except for the minimum sentencing provisions, which came into force on 1 May 1998.
South African criminal law is the body of national law relating to crime in South Africa. In the definition of Van der Walt et al., a crime is "conduct which common or statute law prohibits and expressly or impliedly subjects to punishment remissible by the state alone and which the offender cannot avoid by his own act once he has been convicted." Crime involves the infliction of harm against society. The function or object of criminal law is to provide a social mechanism with which to coerce members of society to abstain from conduct that is harmful to the interests of society.
Criminal procedure in South Africa refers to the adjudication process of that country's criminal law. It forms part of procedural or adjectival law, and describes the means by which its substantive counterpart, South African criminal law, is applied. It has its basis mainly in English law.
The South African law of evidence forms part of the adjectival or procedural law of that country. It is based on English common law.
In Beheermaatschappij Helling I NV v Magistrate, Cape Town (2007), the applicants, who were, variously, Dutch and South African nationals, sought orders declaring:
In Toich v Magistrate, Riversdale (2007), an important case in South African criminal procedure, Toich's home was searched on two occasions by the police, who were purportedly acting in terms of valid search warrants. Various items and sums of cash were seized.
In Investigating Directorate: Serious Economic Offences and Others v Hyundai 2001 (1) SA 545 (CC), an important case in South African criminal procedure, a search warrant had been issued in terms of section 29 of the National Prosecuting Authority Act in respect of certain premises. A large quantity of documents, records and data had been seized from those premises.
In Thint v NDPP; Zuma v NDPP (2008), Thint was a company carrying on business in the field of armaments supply, while Jacob Zuma was a politician.
The Criminal Procedure Code, are Malaysian laws which enacted relating to criminal procedure.