SEARCHES AND SEIZURES - RIGHT OF AN INDIVIDUAL TO FORCE THE RETURN OF GOODS SEIZED AND HELD BY POLICE OFFICIALS

One of the most vexing problems which confronts a police officer investigating a crime is to determine how far he may go in seizing goods from the possession either of the person accused of the crime or of some other person. To him it is important not only as it may affect law suits against him for invasion of possessory rights, but also to make the goods thus seized admissible in evidence. To the individual this problem is important in securing full protection against unwarranted invasions of his possession. It is elementary in our legal system that the possessory rights of the individual are protected to the utmost.

Perhaps one of the first precepts of civil law which one learns as a child is that possession is nine points of the law. Yet opposed to that right is the power and duty of the state to protect the persons within its jurisdiction from crime, and to that end to discover and punish criminals. It is this power, and this power alone, which gives the investigator as an agent of the state any right to disturb the possession of others. But assuming that he has determined to exercise that right, and has seized the goods, still the owner or possessor thereof may have certain rights of redress.

It is the purpose of this comment to discuss the particular right to force the return of those goods through judicial proceedings.