Dictionary Definition
exigency
Noun
1 a pressing or urgent situation; "the
health-care exigency"
2 a sudden unforeseen crisis (usually involving
danger) that requires immediate action; "he never knew what to do
in an emergency" [syn: emergency, pinch]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Etymology
From the Middle French exigence from Late Latin exigentia "urgency" from Latin exigere "to demand"Noun
Related terms
Extensive Definition
An exigent circumstance, in the American
law of criminal
procedure, allows law
enforcement to enter a structure without a warrant, or
if they have a "knock
and announce" warrant, without knocking and waiting for refusal
under certain circumstances. It must be a situation where people
are in imminent danger, evidence
faces imminent destruction or a suspect will escape.
Generally, an emergency, a pressing necessity, or
a set of circumstances requiring immediate attention or swift
action. In the criminal procedure context, exigent circumstances
means:
- An emergency situation requiring swift action to prevent imminent danger to life or serious damage to property, or to forestall the imminent escape of a suspect, or destruction of evidence. There is no ready litmus test for determining whether such circumstances exist, and in each case the extraordinary situation must be measured by the facts known by officials.
United States v. McConney, 728 F.2d 1195, 1199
(9th Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 824 (1984): "Those circumstances
that would cause a reasonable person to believe that entry (or
other relevant prompt action) was necessary to prevent physical
harm to the officers or other persons, the destruction of relevant
evidence, the escape of a suspect, or some other consequence
improperly frustrating legitimate law enforcement efforts."
Exigent circumstances may make a warrantless
search constitutional if probable cause exists. The existence of
exigent circumstances is a mixed question of law and fact. United
States v. Anderson, 154 F. 3d 1225 (10th Cir, 1998) cert. denied
119 S. Ct. 2048 (1999) (citations omitted). There is no absolute
test for determining if exigent circumstances exist, but general
factors have been identified. These include: clear evidence of
probable
cause; the seriousness of the offense and likelihood of
destruction of evidence;
limitations on the search to minimize the intrusion only to
preventing destruction of evidence; and clear indications of
exigency.
Exigency may be determined by: degree of urgency
involved; amount of time needed to get a warrant;
whether evidence is about to be removed or destroyed; danger at the
site; knowledge of the suspect that police are on his or her trail;
and/or ready destructibility of the evidence. United States v.
Reed, 935 F. 2d 641 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 960 (1991).
In determining the time necessary to obtain a warrant, a telephonic
warrant should be considered. As electronic data may be altered or
eradicated in seconds, in a factually compelling case the doctrine
of exigent circumstances will support a warrantless seizure.
Even in exigent circumstances, while a
warrantless seizure may be permitted, a subsequent warrant to
search may still be necessary. See Grosenheider, supra and United
States v. David, 756 F. Supp. 1385 (D. Nev. 1991).
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Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
case of need, climacteric, clutch, compulsion, constraint, contingency, convergence of
events, crisis, critical
juncture, critical point, crossroads, crucial period,
crunch, demandingness, dire
necessity, drive, emergency, exigence, extremity, high pressure,
hinge, immediacy, imperative, imperativeness, importunacy, importunateness,
importunity,
impulse, impulsion, insistence, matter of
necessity, pass, persistence, pertinaciousness,
pertinacity,
pinch, predicament, press, pressingness, pressure, push, rash impulse, rub, strait, stress, tension, turn, turning, turning point, urge, urgency, urgent need