Can a person be arrested without a warrant and booked in jail?
— Michelle A. The Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures extends to arrests. The general rule is that warrantless arrests are presumptively unreasonable, but there are exceptions. Generally they require an officer to have probable cause you committed an offense. There is no precise definition of probable cause, as it depends on the totality of the circumstances in the particular case. Generally it is a reasonable belief that the person to be arrested has committed a crime, based on facts and circumstances particular to that person. Put another way, probable cause exists where the police have reasonably trustworthy information that would cause a reasonable person to believe that a particular person has committed or is committing an offense. The Fourth Amendment applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. In Texas, where you are from, there are specific statutes governing warrantless arrests. Once you establish that the arrest was made witho
