Homicide Scene Exception

The Supreme Court traditionally has used very narrow language in cases involving warrantless searches. The Court has stated that "searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are unreasonable per se under the fourth amendment-subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions."' Notwithstanding this precise language, the exceptions recognized by the Court have been neither "few" nor "well-delineated." Rather than adopt a narrow construction of the fourth amendment, the Court has liberally interpreted the amendment and expanded its exceptions in order to avoid inequitable results. During the past ten years some lower federal and state courts, responding more to the practical results of Supreme Court warrantless search cases than to the Court's rhetoric, have recognized a significant new exception to the fourth amendments warrant requirement: the "homicide scene" exception. This exception allows police officers, who make a legitimate...