Was the Seizure of Oswald's effects at 1026 No. Beckley legal ?

[Gil Jesus]

Search and seizure is a legal procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems whereby police or other authorities and their agents, who suspect that a crime has been committed, do a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence to the crime.

Below is a copy of the search warrant for 1026 North Beckley. Notice that on the search warrant the reason for the warrant is to search for "guns, ammunition and bombs".

None of which were reportedly found in his room. Instead, police confiscated ALL of Oswald's belongings, none of which ( save the holster ) could be considered "relevent evidence" to any of the crimes he was being held for.

There's no doubt in my mind that the search was a legal search in accordance with the law, but was the seizure of all of his personal belongings legal ?

Edited September 18, 2011 by Gil Jesus

[John Dolva]

maybe it's a carte blanche for anything the may yield any residues irrespective of whether it's taken for that reason or not

[Mark Knight]

Search and seizure is a legal procedure used in many civil law and common law legal systems whereby police or other authorities and their agents, who suspect that a crime has been committed, do a search of a person's property and confiscate any relevant evidence to the crime.

Below is a copy of the search warrant for 1026 North Beckley. Notice that on the search warrant the reason for the warrant is to search for "guns, ammunition and bombs".

None of which were reportedly found in his room. Instead, police confiscated ALL of Oswald's belongings, none of which ( save the holster ) could be considered "relevent evidence" to any of the crimes he was being held for.

There's no doubt in my mind that the search was a legal search in accordance with the law, but was the seizure of all of his personal belongings legal ?

In today's post-Miranda world [Miranda warning came about in 1966], it was NOT legal to confiscate ALL of Oswald's belongings. Had Oswald gone to trial, even in 1963 I'm sure that a competent defense attorney could've gotten anything removed as evidence which was not within the specified scope of the search warrant. BUT...prior to any trial...I understand that a lot of police departments would sieze everything, and then gradually return items that were deemed by prosecutors as 'not pertinent" to the case against the defendant. While this is a de facto violation of the Fourth Amendment, the sad truth is, it WAS a common practice in 1963, as I understand it.