Question

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects citizens against unreasonable searches and siezures. No search of a person's home or personal effects may be conducted without a written search warrant issued on probable cause. This means that a neutral judge must approve the factual bases justifying a search before it can be conducted.
This paragraph best supports the statement that the police cannot search person's home or private papers unless they have

• A. legal authorization
• B. direct evidence of a crime.
• C. read the person his or her constitutional rights.
• D. a reasonable belief that a crime has occurred
• E. requested that a judge be present.

Answer 1

The correct option is A legal authorization

The second and third sentence combine to give support to choice a. The statement stresses that there must be a judge's approval (i.e., legal authorization) before a search can be conducted. Choices b and d are wrong because it is not enough for the police to have direct evidence or a reasonable belief a judge must authorize the search for it to be legal. Choices c and e are not mentioned in the passage.