Probable Cause

Probable cause is a foundational concept in American criminal law, derived from the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is the threshold standard that law enforcement must meet before making a warrantless arrest, conducting a search, or asking a judge to issue an arrest or search warrant. "Probable cause" means there is a reasonable basis — more than suspicion but less than proof beyond a reasonable doubt — to believe that a crime has occurred and that the person or place is connected to it.

In practice, probable cause is established through a combination of observed facts, informant tips, physical evidence, and the officer's training and experience. For a warrantless arrest, the officer must have facts that would lead a reasonable person to believe the individual committed a crime. For a search warrant, the officer submits an affidavit to a judge laying out the supporting facts.

The probable cause standard matters enormously at the omnibus hearing stage of a Minnesota criminal case. If a defense attorney can demonstrate that probable cause was lacking when the police made an arrest or conducted a search, any evidence obtained as a result may be suppressed under the "exclusionary rule." This can gut a prosecution's case.

Every criminal complaint filed in Minnesota — the documents that MN CRIME tracks and publishes at mncrime.com/latest — must establish probable cause. The complaint, written by a prosecutor, lays out the factual basis for charging the defendant. When you read a case on MN CRIME, you are reading that probable cause statement. CaseVault at mncrime.com/casevault lets you search and analyze complaints by charge type, county, and defendant.