Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in Colorado

Re: Home Invasion

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Generally speaking, a warrant is required to enter into a house. There are exceptions to the warrant requirement, such as "exigent circumstances" and "hot pursuit" doctrines - those are situations where the police have been hot on the trail of a suspect and s/he ducks into a house during the chase, or there is reason to believe that important evidence will be lost if time is taken to obtain a warrant. These are limited siutations and very fact dependent. The remedies for violating the warrant requirement are these: the warrant requirement is a function of the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution. So, if police conduct an illegal search in violation of the warrant requirement, they have violated the 4th Amendment - a constitutional violation. In the criminal context this violation is fixed by excluding from trial any of the evidence seized as a result of the illegal search. Referred to as an 'exclusionary' rule of evidence and usually sought via a motion to suppress. The evidence illegally obtained without a warrant cannot be used against the defendant.

In the civil law arena, a 4th Amendment violation can give rise to a section 1983 (42 USC 1983) civil rights lawsuit for money damages. Such a suit would usually be filed against the violating officers and/or the employing police agency. With a purely technical violation case, you may not have much in the way of damages, but may be entitled to some amount of nominal award plus attorneys fees and costs if you are the substantially prevailing party.