What is Plain View?
No warrant is required to seize evidence in plain view if the police are legitimately in the location from which the evidence can be viewed. For example, an officer cannot illegally enter a suspect’s back yard and then use the plain view exception to seize an illegally kept alligator living in the pool. But, if on the premises to serve a warrant duly issued to search for marijuana plants, the alligator, if in plain view, can rightly (though by no means easily) be seized.
EXAMPLE: The police are called to Donald’s house by neighbors who see him beating up his wife, Victoria. After properly entering the house (without a search warrant – see emergency exception below), police notice Donald’s prized gun collection hanging on the wall. Fortunately for the officers, the guns are not loaded. Unfortunately for Donald, many of them are illegal and Donald is arrested for battery as well as for the illegal guns, which are seized.