Having a warrant can be a pretty big deal, no matter what state you live in. A warrant allows for law enforcement to search or seize your property, papers, or person. Whether you want to see if you have a warrant so you can plan accordingly or you want to see if someone else has a warrant so you can be sure that you’re properly vetting them, you’ll need to know how to do it. In the state of Texas, that means that you’ll need to do a Texas warrant search.
These searches are easy enough to do, assuming you have an internet connection and a basic understanding of how to browse that internet. That being said, today we’re going to be looking at some of the history of warrants in the United States, how to do warrant searches in the state of Texas, and a whole lot more. We’ve done a great deal of research into this topic so you don’t have to and, hopefully, by the time you’re done reading this article, you’ll be ready to do your own warrant searches while also understanding why warrants exist at all.
What is a Warrant
Some people might not fully understand what a warrant is. This is in part to most people not understanding the criminal justice system in the United States in general, and also in part to legal dramas that you see in movies, T.V. shows, and books. It can be hard to figure out exactly what’s going on with the criminal justice system here in the United States when there’s so much misinformation that is spread through such popular platforms and mediums. So what exactly is a warrant and how does it impact your life anyway?
A warrant, in the simplest terms, is an order that is signed by a judge or magistrate that allows the search or seizure of a person or their property. These orders must be signed by a judge or magistrate, but in some states, mayors are also allowed to sign warrants. For the most part, even in states where this is allowed, mayors only sign warrants if it’s incredibly urgent and there are no judges or magistrates available to do so. This is because mayoral warrants typically don’t carry the same weight as a warrant signed by a judge or magistrate.
There are a couple of types of warrants available to be issued. One is a search warrant. As an American citizen, you have the right to refuse searches by law enforcement unless they have a warrant. A warrant can only be issued if there is enough evidence that it would be constitutional to do so, which is why they need to be signed by a judge or magistrate. There are also warrants for seizure, and this is the category that arrest warrants fall under. For these kinds of warrants, there has to be enough evidence for you to be suspected of a crime. Remember, just because you or someone else has a warrant that doesn’t mean that they’re guilty. They must be tried in a court of law before that is determined.
Why are There Warrants?
Now you understand what a warrant is, we have to take a moment to understand why warrants exist. Believe it or not, warrants are actually a key part of our criminal justice system. Without warrants, everything would either come to a screeching halt or we’d live in an authoritarian police state where people could and would regularly be searched and arrested for little to no reason on a daily basis.
So, what makes warrants so special? Why are they so important? Well, back when the United States was a very young country, shortly after the declaration of Independence was signed, another important document was signed. This document is known as the Constitution, and it grants us some freedoms. You probably already know about freedom of speech and the right to bear arms, and you might not know about your right to refuse to provide quarters to the military. One amendment that you may or may not know too much about is the 4th amendment.
The fourth amendment, in short, protects you from unreasonable searches and seizures. This amendment is the reason why we need warrants at all. It is unconstitutional for law enforcement to search you without reasonable probable cause, and it’s also illegal for you to be arrested without reasonable probable cause. Of course, if a police officer sees a big bag of crack cocaine on your passenger seat they can arrest you without question because they can see the bag of drugs on your seat. That being said, they can’t get into your trunk to search for drugs unless your car smells like drugs.
Police can bring drug-sniffing dogs to sniff around the parameter of your car for drugs, and this doesn’t violate the 4th amendment because they aren’t searching you, just smelling for drugs. There are ways to get around that, but we aren’t here to teach you all about your rights we’re here to explain warrants to you. Our point is that there are ways to get around this if there is probable enough cause, but if there is not they need to get a judge or magistrate to authorize a warrant so you can be searched, arrested, or your things seized.
It is worth noting that just because a warrant is requested, it’s not always approved. Judges and magistrates have to be sure that a warrant is constitutional before they issue it. Unconstitutional warrants can get them in hot water and no matter how much they like the requesting officer it’s not worth it to them. That being said, in most cases all they need is witness testimony or some other basic piece of evidence to issue a warrant. It doesn’t take a lot for a warrant to be constitutional, but whether or not there’s enough evidence it must first be approved by the right people.
How to Find a Warrant
Now that you understand what a warrant is and why they’re so important to the United States criminal justice system, it’s time to teach you how to find warrants. Like most things in life, there is an easy way and a hard way, as well as a far more difficult way. We’re going to cover three ways of varying difficulty so you can know what your best options are for your warrant search before you even get onto the right website to do this kind of search.
The first way is going to be the easiest way. Just find a good warrant search website. These websites allow you to make a broad search area so you can get all the information you need from all over the state of Texas, or even over the entire country. These services are highly specialized to help make your search go as smoothly as possible, pulling up information from all over the place in mere moments. In fact, a lot of these services are able to get your search results back to you instantly. That makes these services invaluable tools for your warrant search.
You can try to get this information from the county sheriff’s departments as well, but that can be very hit or miss. Some counties provide incredibly robust databases with this kind of information, and those services are incredible for this kind of search. That being said, many counties don’t provide this kind of information which makes things tricky. Law enforcement also doesn’t connect these databases, so if you want to find this information this way you’ll need to check one county at a time and cross your fingers that you’ll find what you’re looking for in each county.
Lastly, and this only works if you’re looking into your own warrants and as a last resort, you can hire a lawyer. Lawyers have access to all sorts of records that the general population doesn’t, which means that they can give you warrant information with 100% certainty. We recommend only using this if you’re sure that you have a warrant out for your arrest because criminal defense attornies are expensive. That being said, if you do have a warrant you and your lawyer can immediately get to figuring out your defense plan to try and either get you out of the charge or reduce your sentence as much as possible.
Get Texas Warrant Information Easily
Knowing if you or someone else has a warrant can be helpful for a lot of reasons. Getting this information can be pivotal for protecting yourself, whether from someone that’s potentially dangerous or from being taken in by the police during a routine traffic stop unexpectedly. Warrant searches are nothing new and with a little practice, you can get warrant information in less than 10 minutes from start to finish, which means that no matter how tight your schedule is you can be sure that you get all the information you need right when you need it.
