Plain View Doctrine

The plain view doctrine allows an officer to seize – without a warrant – evidence and contraband found in plain view during a lawful observation. This doctrine is also regularly used by TSA Federal Government Officers while screening persons and property at U.S. airports.

For the plain view doctrine to apply for discoveries, the three-prong Horton test requires:

  1. the officer to be lawfully present at the place where the evidence can be plainly viewed,
  2. the officer to have a lawful right of access to the object, and
  3. the incriminating character of the object to be “immediately apparent.”

In order for the officer to seize the item, the officer must have probable cause to believe the item is evidence of a crime or is contraband. The police may not move objects to get a better view. In Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321 (1987), the officer was found to have acted unlawfully. While investigating a shooting, the officer moved, without probable cause, stereo equipment to record the serial numbers. The plain view doctrine has also been expanded to include the sub doctrines of plain feel, plain smell, and plain hearing.

In Horton v. California 496 U.S. 128 (1990), the court eliminated the requirement that the discovery of evidence in plain view be inadvertent, a requirement that had led to difficulties in defining "inadvertent discovery."

Famous quotes containing the words plain, view and/or doctrine:

    “The Crucifixion and other historical precedents notwithstanding, many of us still believe that outstanding goodness is a kind of armor, that virtue, seen plain and bare, gives pause to criminality. But perhaps it is the other way around.”
    —Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)

    “Only he who can view his own past as an abortion sprung from compulsion and need can use it to full advantage in the present. For what one has lived is at best comparable to a beautiful statue which has had all its limbs knocked off in transit, and now yields nothing but the precious block out of which the image of one’s future must be hewn.”
    —Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)

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    —Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)