New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

Topic

Warrantless searches

Legal area

Court

15 Feb 2018

AUCKRAM v R [2018] NZHC 153

Citation

[2018] NZHC 153
Court

High Court

The cumulative information available to police — the recent Facebook posting of a sawed-off firearm, inability to verify an external source for the image, the appellant's prior gunshot injury, significant convictions including drug and violent offending, and absence of any firearms licence — amounted to reasonable grounds under s18(2)(a) to suspect unlawful possession of a firearm, rendering the warrantless search lawful and the seized evidence admissible.
10 Aug 2016

ALAMOTI v R [2016] NZCA 402

Citation

[2016] NZCA 402
Court

Court of Appeal

Leave to appeal was granted but the appeal was dismissed: Detective Graham's rub-down search of Alamoti was lawful (s85 and assisting powers); searches of the vehicle and motel rooms involved errors of law because the searching officers did not properly form or consider the s20(c) and s15(b)(ii) beliefs about risk to evidential material, but the evidence obtained was not excluded under s30 because the improprieties were minor/inadvertent, intrusion was low given context, evidence was highly probative and exclusion would be disproportionate.