Police obtain a search warrant for Mary's house to search for cocaine. While executing the search warrant, the police look in a closet and find a sawed-off shotgun. The gun will be:
A. admissible if it was immediately apparent as contraband.
B. admissible only if the police found cocaine too.
C. admissible, but only if Mary gave consent to the search of the closet.
D. inadmissible, as the gun was not listed on the search warrant.
I think it's A, but not 100% sure.
The correct answer is D. The gun will be inadmissible as evidence because it was not listed on the search warrant. Search warrants are specific and must state the items or evidence that the police are authorized to search for. Anything not included in the warrant cannot be used as evidence in court, unless it falls under an exception such as the "plain view" doctrine, which does not apply in this scenario.
To determine the admissibility of the sawed-off shotgun found in Mary's closet while executing a search warrant to search for cocaine, we need to consider the legal principles surrounding the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Under the Fourth Amendment, search and seizure activities by law enforcement must generally be supported by a valid search warrant based on probable cause. The search warrant specifies the authorized areas to be searched and the items that can be seized.
In this scenario, the search warrant was obtained to search for cocaine in Mary's house. However, during the course of executing the search warrant, the police found a sawed-off shotgun in a closet.
Based on legal precedents and the immediate apparent doctrine, the answer to the question is option A: the gun will be admissible if it was immediately apparent as contraband.
The immediate apparent doctrine states that items found in plain view during a lawful search, even if not listed on the search warrant, can be seized if they are immediately recognized as illegal or contraband. This means that if the police officers saw the sawed-off shotgun in plain view while searching for cocaine and it was immediately apparent that the gun was illegal, then it could be seized and used as evidence in court.
Therefore, it is not necessary for the police to find cocaine or for Mary to give consent for the gun to be admissible. The determining factor is whether the gun was immediately apparent as contraband during the search.