police property criminal-procedure
What should police do in case a stolen item is evidently in suspect&#39;s house
<p><code>A</code> person (woman) says that <code>B</code> person (man) had stolen an item (laptop), because she has seen <code>B</code> doing that, being few meters away from the location, watching how he has done it (watching her items which were visually identifiable easily with the unique colors and stickers on her laptop). Then also GPS signal was coming from the <code>B</code>'s home, and when she called the messenger, the ringtone come from <code>B</code>'s home (device was still connected to the WIFI).</p>
<p>When she called a police, they couldnt do anything and said that they have wait for a court order (search warrant) and even it was dubious if they would get search warrant at all. After weeks, the search warrant was issued, but no need to guess any joke out of it, there was already no trace of existence of the item in thief's home.</p>
<p>Similar situations happened quite many times around me, people being robbed quickly, and police being unable to do anything, and all such cases closed without any success.</p>
<ol>
<li>Des the police act correctly?</li>
<li>What should the owner do in such a case, when the owner still knows the item's location exactly and immediate action is needed, but the police is not helping?</li>
</ol>
<hr />
<p>(p.s. Maybe jurisdiction doesn't much matter here, let's consider a typical civil country).</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/united-states" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" rel="tag">united-states</a></p>
<p>In the US, the default rule is that your home is your castle. In general, nobody, not even the police, can enter your home without your permission. The main exception to this rule is that police do not need your permission if they have a search warrant to search your home. To get a warrant, the police must convince a magistrate that they have good reason (ie, &quot;probable cause&quot;), such as a gps track, to believe they will find evidence of a crime if they search the house.</p>
<p>The police in your hypothetical are in a similar situation to police who are tracking the gps signal from a &quot;<a href="http://cdn.harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/vol128_Joh.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">bait car</a>/bike/phone/tablet/package.&quot; (A bait car is a car/etc that has been fitted with a camera and gps tracker, and left out as bait for thieves.)</p>
<p>As long as the car is in public view, the police do not need a warrant to search it and arrest the person driving it. However, once the bait car is out of public view, where the police can no longer see it, they need a warrant to go in and recover it, even if they can see it on the tracker. (See, for example, the instructions for bait car programs from the <a href="https://www.eugene-or.gov/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/5186" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Eugene</a> and <a href="http://www.renopd.com/content/gen_ord/S-270-09%20Bait%20Vehicle%20Operations.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Reno</a> Police Departments.)</p>
<p>(For phones, which may not be in &quot;plain view&quot; even if the thief is, the police use ring programs to make the phone ring. Hearing a phone respond to a ring program gives them probable cause under the &quot;hearing&quot; version of the &quot;plain view&quot; doctrine.)</p>
<p>Bottom line: In the US, the police need a search warrant. Since search warrants take time and effort, police may be unwilling to get a warrant for something as low valued as a phone.</p>
<p>If the police can't or won't help, there are various options for privately enforcing one's rights. These range from the legal -- knocking on the door and confronting the thief -- to the illegal -- left to your imagination.</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/united-states" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;united-states&#39;" rel="tag">united-states</a></p>
<p>Assuming a U.S. jurisdiction, the police are entirely within their rights to wait for the issuance of a search warrant and it is probably better practice to do so in a case where recovery of stolen property is at issue.</p>
<p>There are exceptions to the warrant requirement, but they generally involve &quot;exigent circumstances&quot; involving a risk of either physical harm to someone inside, or destruction of evidence.</p>
<p>A person trying to get the property back or get compensation has multiple options. Continue to work with police, bring a civil suit for return of the property (which would ultimately be enforced by law enforcement), or bring a civil suit against the suspected thief for conversion and use the GPS data as proof (perhaps with a screenshot).</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/georgia-country" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;georgia-country&#39;" rel="tag">georgia-country</a></p>
<p>To pick a civil law jurisdiction, Art. 15 of the <a href="https://matsne.gov.ge/en/document/view/30346?publication=35" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Constitution of the Republic of Georgia</a> holds that</p>
<blockquote>
<ol start="2">
<li>Personal space and communication shall be inviolable. No one shall have the right to enter a place of residence or other possessions, or
to conduct a search, against the will of the possessor. These rights
may be restricted only in accordance with law for ensuring national
security or public safety, or for protecting the rights of others,
insofar as is necessary in a democratic society, based on a court
decision or without a court decision in cases of urgent necessity
provided for by law. In cases of urgent necessity, a court shall be
notified of the restriction of the right no later than 24 hours after
the restriction, and the court shall approve the lawfulness of the
restriction no later than 24 hours after the submission of the
notification.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>We would then turn to the <a href="https://matsne.gov.ge/ka/document/download/90034/64/en/pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Criminal Procedure Code</a> to see what is allowed by law. The law of searches starts at Art. 119. Art 121 allows personal searches of detainees under certain circumstances, without the requirement of a court order. Otherwise per Art. 120 every search requires a court ruling to authorize the search. Therefore, in Georgia the police are legally compelled to wait for a court order. US common law rules like the plain sight rule would not be applicable</p>
