ABSTRACT
To obtain a search warrant, the applying officer must submit a sworn affidavit to a neutral and detached magistrate detailing sufficient facts and information that will allow the magistrate to make an independent determination of probable cause and the appropriateness of a search warrant. An affidavit is a signed document attesting under oath or affirmation to certain facts of which the affiant (the person submitting the affidavit) has knowledge. Magistrates are public officials with limited judicial authority, such as justices of the peace. Judges have greater powers than magistrates and in some jurisdictions can appoint magistrates to conduct preliminary proceedings in both civil and criminal cases. The affidavit is submitted to a magistrate or judge who may or may not issue a search warrant. In Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10 (1948), Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson provided the rationale for the warrant requirement:
The point of the Fourth Amendment…is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.
