Help with Law..?

Central City police get a tip that Milton Miller, a man wanted on a variety of security fraud charges, is staying with his brother on a farm near the edge of town. The police have come under sharp criticism from both the mayor and the local news media for letting Miller escape from their custody three months ago. To try to recoup some reputation, Chief Harley Davidson calls the editor of the local newspaper, the Central Courier, and asks him if he would like to send a reporter and a photographer along when officers to execute the search warrant.

The editor says sure and dispatches a team to go with the police. Officers quietly surround the house, and then Chief Davidson, two men, and the journalists enter the house through the front door. Miller's sister-in-law, who is holding a small baby, tells the reporters they have no right to enter into private property and asks them to leave.

But they stay, continuing to snap pictures, after Chief Davidson announces to the occupants that the journalists have his permission to be there. With kids screaming and crying and the sister-in-law protesting, the officers find Miller hiding in a closet, put him in handcuffs, and march him outside. Miller is taken to the courthouse where he is arraigned on a variety of charges and carted off to jail.

Milton Miller, his wife, his brother, and his sister-in-law bring a lawsuit for trespass against the Courier and against the police chief for permitting the journalists to enter their home without permission. They claim a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights in the latter lawsuit. Davidson argues that the reporter and photographer were fulfilling a valuable law enforcement purpose when they entered the home to document the arrest. Lawyers for the Courier argue that as long as the police gave permission, the journalists had the right to enter private property. Who will win this case and why? Bottom of Form

Unless the search warrant specified that reporters must be present, the family will win.

The reporters had no right to trespass and the police chief lacked jurisdiction to give them the right - only the owner of the property or their agent has that right.

I actually remember a case just like this. The Supreme Court ruled that the warrant did not give private citizens any right to enter the premises, and that the police had no right to extend legal authority to the journalists to enter the premises. Bottom line - journalists have no right to enter your property without your consent.

The plaintiff will win. This type of case has already been to the US Supreme Court, and the media do NOT have the right to enter your home with police. This was a case that resulted for the show "Cops".