JUDICIAL DECISIONS ON CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE.

This paper details the case "People V. Preuss." The court having taken the position that intoxicating liquor seized on defendant's premises by an officer conducting a search under a warrant authorizing search for certain stolen beans was inadmissible as evidence in a prosecution for unlawful possession of intoxicating liquor, the prosecution contended that the arrest could be justified on the theory that the officer being lawfully in the building to search for the beans could arrest for, and seize evidence of, an offense being committed in his presence. Held, the contention was untenable. The court distinguishes this type of case where the officer's entry is originally by virtue of a warrant with a mandate to search only for evidence of crime A, in which case evidence of a totally different offense, B, may not be seized, and the case where the officer's original entry is authorized not by a warrant, but by his duty to arrest for crime A actually being committed in his presence, in which case, being lawfully on the premises he may arrest for and seize evidence of crime B. In the former case to allow the arrest for, and seizure of evidence of crime B would violate the constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures while in the latter case no such right is violated.