Under what conditions may an item be seized without a warrant because it was handed over voluntarily or left behind, and whose role must the file show?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
For this exercise, the papers to read are the list or record of the items each person handed in or left behind, showing whether that person was the owner, the possessor or the custodian, and any note of whether the handover was voluntary rather than compelled. Those papers matter because the provision allows seizure without a warrant only on those two routes.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading follows the provision's own two routes: where the owner, possessor or custodian has voluntarily submitted a thing, or where a thing has been left behind, that thing may be seized without a warrant, so on the first route the person's relationship to the thing and the voluntariness of the submission are the conditions to read for, while the second route names no such conditions.
Another reading notes what the provision does not name: it does not say who carries out the seizure, what record must be made of a voluntary submission, or how a file shows that a submission was voluntary rather than compelled, so those questions cannot be settled from this text alone.
Your judgment
When a file shows a thing in an officer's hands but no record of who submitted it or whether the submission was voluntary, how could that gap be shown to have been filled?
PRO SE does not make this decision or keep a case record on this public site.When to reconsider
We look at this again if the provision is amended to add a record or notice requirement, or if a court decision explains how the voluntariness of a submission must be proved.