Arrest | Legal Rights & Procedures | Britannica (original) (raw)

Politics, Law & Government Law, Crime & Punishment

News •

arrest, placing of a person in custody or under restraint, usually for the purpose of compelling obedience to the law. If the arrest occurs in the course of criminal procedure, the purpose of the restraint is to hold the person for answer to a criminal charge or to prevent him from committing an offense. In civil proceedings, the purpose is to hold the person to a demand made against him.

In both common-law and civil-law jurisdictions, certain prerequisites must be met before there can be any interference with individual liberty. An arrest warrant may be issued by a court or judicial officer on a showing of probable cause that a criminal offense has been committed and that the person charged in the warrant is probably guilty. An arrest warrant may validly be served only by the person or class of persons to whom the warrant is addressed. In many states of the United States this can be a private citizen as well as a police officer.

More numerous and of greater practical importance are arrests without warrants. A police officer may arrest a person who is committing or attempting to commit a crime in the officer’s presence. An officer may also arrest a person provided that the officer reasonably believes a crime to have been committed and the person arrested to be the guilty party. In the United States an indictment provides sufficient warrant for arrest of the accused, because the return of an indictment by a grand jury constitutes a finding of “probable cause.” Arrests may also be made of persons on probation or parole who have violated the conditions of their release, even though such violations do not involve commission of criminal acts. In many cases of minor offenses, the accused is not arrested but is notified of pending criminal proceedings by a summons.

Unlawful or invalid arrests may have a variety of important legal consequences. For instance, it is generally recognized that a search of the person arrested and of the immediate premises is valid when “incident” to a lawful arrest. But if the arrest is unlawful, the search is also invalid, and can be barred from the criminal proceedings. In some situations illegal arrest practices may even render a confession of the defendant inadmissible at the trial. In the United States, Supreme Court decisions in Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) and Miranda v. Arizona (1966) called for the exclusion of many types of evidence if the arresting officers failed to advise the suspect of his constitutional right not to answer any questions and to have an attorney present during such questioning. (See Miranda warning and Miranda v. Arizona.)

Arrest in civil cases is today regarded as a drastic remedy, and in most jurisdictions it is available only in situations specified by statute, such as the arrest of a debtor who may otherwise abscond. Arrest may also be authorized in connection with other specialized civil proceedings. The most prevalent instances of such arrests are of persons whose extreme mental disorders constitute a recognizable danger to themselves or to others.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.