NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Exigent circumstance

An exigent circumstance, in the American law of criminal procedure, allows law enforcement to enter a structure without a warrant, or if a they have a "knock and announce" warrant, without knocking and waiting for refusal under certain circumstances. It must be a situation where people are in imminent danger, evidence faces imminent destruction or a suspect will escape. Critical legal studies Jurisprudence Law (principle) Legal research Letter versus Spirit List of legal abbreviations Legal code Pointless law Natural justice Natural law Philosophy of law Religious law External links Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Law Look up law in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Criminal procedure refers to the legal process for adjudicating claims that someone has violated the criminal law. ... For the band, see The Police. ... In law, a warrant can mean any authorization. ... A knock and announce warrant, in the American law of criminal procedure, requires that the officer tasked with the responsibility of executing the warrant must knock on the door of the home to be entered for a search or arrest, and to announce their purpose. ... Evidence can mean: Any objectively demonstrable circumstance which tends to indicate or disprove a proposition, see scientific method and reality. ... In the parlance of criminal justice, a suspect is a term used to refer to a person, known or unknown, suspected of committing a crime. ...

Generally, an emergency, a pressing neccessity, or a set of circumstances requiring immediate attention or swift action. In the criminal procedure context, exigent cricumstances means:

An emergency situation requiring swift action to prevent imminent danger to life or serious damage to property, or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect, or destruction of evidence. There is no ready litmus test for determining whether such circumstances exist, and in each case the extraordinary situation must be measured by the facts known by officials.

People v. Ramsey, 545 P.2d 1333,1341 (Cal. 1976).

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Warrantless Motor Vehicle Searches: No Exigent Circumstances Required

Canada, R. v. Silveira (2877 words)
	Yet, exigent circumstances did exist: the nature of the crime, the public arrests near the dwelling-house and the belief by the police that they needed to enter the house in order to preserve the evidence while they awaited the search warrant which they believed to be on the way.
	If the urgent emergency circumstances are such that the police are required to enter a dwelling without a warrant to preserve evidence, the question as to whether or not the serious nature of the breach would render the evidence obtained in a subsequent search inadmissible will have to be carefully considered on a case-by-case basis.
	Exigent circumstances, both under the common law and under the Charter, constitute an exception to the ancient maxim "a man's home is his castle" which underlies the finding of a serious s.

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