Can the Police go Into my Home Without my Knowledge or Warrant and Enter a Minor’s Bedroom to Arrest Someone?


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“I feel like my fourth amendment constitutional rights were compromised and wanted to see if that is true. Here is the situation. I live in New Jersey. My daughter’s boyfriend was sleeping over my house after attending a party earlier in the evening. At that party, her boyfriend apparently had gotten in a fight with another boy. The fight ended without any further incident. There were no police involved and no mention of anyone looking to bring a complaint against him. My daughter and her boyfriend left the party and came back home.

At around 5:00am in the morning two state police knocked on the front door of my house. My daughter (who is 17 and still a minor) answered the door and they entered the house without confirming whether her parents were home or her age.

They asked her where her boyfriend was and when she told them they proceeded to go upstairs into her bedroom and seize her boyfriend. They took him out of the house and drove him to the police station to arrest him for assault.

This all happened while I was asleep in my bedroom. (my wife was out of town on a business trip).

I wanted to find out if my constitutional 4th amendment rights were violated since the officers did not have a warrant and did not get consent to enter my house. Further, they didn’t just enter the house, but proceeded to go upstairs and enter the bedroom of a minor without my consent or knowledge? What action can be taken if any, and what impact could this have on the arrest and the case?”

Question: It seems that you may be confusing the right against unreasonable search and seizure with the act of someone being arrested. Think of how this would have played out if you had answered the door. The police did not come to search your house for incriminating items to use against you. They came to arrest someone (and, by your own account, rightfully so) for assault. Had you not cooperated you might have found yourself being hauled down to the station for obstruction of justice and maybe, even, harbouring a felon (if the assault rose to the level of felony assault).