M.D.Pa.: Even though the officer had the PC for weeks, he was not required to get an arrest warrant

A warrantless arrest on probable cause is reasonable. Even though the officer had the PC for weeks, he was not required to get an arrest warrant. United States v. Kellam, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146596 (M.D.Pa. Oct. 29, 2015):

… Because the court is bound by Supreme Court precedent, it is constrained to find that the warrantless arrest did not violate the Fourth Amendment.

The Fourth Amendment provides: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. This does not mean that all searches and seizures require the issuance of a warrant. Rather, the Fourth Amendment merely proscribes those searches—with or without a warrant—that are unreasonable.

In this regard, the Supreme Court has held that a search of private property “conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by a judge or magistrate, [is] per se unreasonable – subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967). Thus, in order to protect the privacy of the individual, the general rule is that a warrant must be obtained prior to a search. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967).

Because the Fourth Amendment speaks indistinguishably of both searches and seizures, it would seem that the constitutional provision should impose the same limitations, if not more, upon arrests that it does upon seizures. Watson, 423 U.S. at 445-46 (Marshall, J., dissenting); see id. at 428 (Powell, J., concurring). However, in Watson, the Supreme Court took the reverse approach for arrests, holding that a warrantless arrest is reasonable so long as the law enforcement official has probable cause to believe that a felony has occurred. See id.at 416-24; Florida v. White, 526 U.S. 559, 565 (1999) (citing Watson, 423 U.S. at 416-24). Thus, according to Supreme Court jurisprudence, the proper “inquiry is ‘not whether there was a warrant or whether there was time to get one, but whether there was probable cause for the arrest.'” United States v. Bizier, 111 F.3d 214, 217 (1st Cir. 1997) (quoting Watson, 423 U.S. at 417)). The Watson court summarized as follows:

Law enforcement officers may find it wise to seek arrest warrants where practicable to do so, and their judgments about probable cause may be more readily accepted where backed by a warrant issued by a magistrate. But we decline to transform this judicial preference into a constitutional rule when the judgment of the Nation and Congress has for so long been to authorize warrantless public arrests on probable cause rather than encumber criminal prosecutions with endless litigation with respect to the existence of exigent circumstances, whether it was practicable to get a warrant, whether the suspect was about to flee, and the like.

Watson, 423 U.S. at 423-24 (citations omitted).

As such, there is no need here to examine whether circumstances immediately preceding Defendant’s arrest justified it or whether Detective Lau could have obtained a warrant from a neutral magistrate in the weeks that had lapsed since the controlled buys. Rather, under Watson, the court’s inquiry here is quite limited.