The local law enforcement searched the home of a friend of mine and found drugs. It was four hours later when the obtained the actual search warrant. The also did not knock and announce but when asked who was at the door they stated your neighbor john. Is this legal? And is the search vaild? Is anything they found admissible in court?

The police searched my friends home four hours before obtaining a search warrant. They did find drugs but didn't have the actual warrant for four hours. Is this evidence admissible in a court of law? And they also didn't knock and announce. They told us they were the neighbors

When did the judge sign the warrant, as long as they had a warrant signed, they do not have to have a copy of it with them.

The warrant application ( there is one on file) will show the date and time the warrant was signed, many warrants also show the time.

Next who let them in the house, if they did not knock how did you know someone was at the door,

When you opened the door and it was not JOHN, who let them in, did anyone tell them to leave, did anyone tell them they could not search the property.

Those are all issues as to the use of the evidence.

It was actually my friends home and her husband opened the dorr. They did knock but didn't say that they were the police but a neighbor named john. They stayed in their home for four hours until they came back with the warrant. They didn't have an actual warrant when they found anything they found. Is that legal? And though they didn't have the warrant as they came in doesn't matter?

They entered the home at 6pm and didn't arrest them until after 10pm

As soon as they entered they immediately started searching them and their home. They found drugs in the husbands pockect and place it back in his pocket until they got the warrant. They did ask if they could search and my friend and her husband both told them no. they searched anyway

The drugs in the pocket is a question, if they were allowed in and they did not force thierself in, they can search an area around the suspect ( at least in my state) for "officer" safety.

So if while checking for a gun in their pocket, they find drugs, they put the drugs back since it was not a gun,

It will come back to did they ever tell the police not to come in, and did they ever tell the police to get the heck out of my house.

I just checked my law book from my course last year. It says as long as they were allowed in and to stay, it's legal for them to

They were not welcomed into the home. They were told they couldn't search at all. They were there to serve an arrest warrant. This happened in cookeville tn. I just didn't think that the way they went about searching was legal. They had no probable cause. And they can actually search before the warrant is valid? I don't mean the area they were in, I mean the whole house. And by the officer placing the drug back into his pockets, I just thought that this was unusual

So even if they didn't have the search warrant until four hours later, everything is legal?

If they were not welcomed in, it is illegal and the case when in court can be thrown out

They can use a ruse to get you to open the door. If they had an arrest warrant for someone present, then they could enter. If what they observed inside gave them probable cause to obtain a search warrant, they could secure the place until the warrant was obtained. Lastly, if someone was arrested, pursuant to the warrant, the area surrounding that person could be searched incident to the arrest.

It sounds to me like it was not good police work. They had an arrest warrant which are only served at homes why would they not have the search warrant too. If your friends have a good attorney they will get the evidence suppressed that was found. It is so tricky if they came in with a warrant and found drugs and then later a judge decides there wasn't enough probable cause to issue the warrant the evidence could not be used against them. Beings they knocked and came in if drugs are in plain view or things related to drugs are in plain view and they had a reason to be there (to serve the arrest warrant) then went and got a warrant they are within the realm of law.