the.com/probable cause
The legal bar for a search that's higher than a hunch, lower than proof.
means A reasonable basis, grounded in facts, for believing a crime has occurred or that evidence of one will be found in a specific place — the standard police need to get a warrant, make an arrest, or conduct a search.
from Straightforward legal English rather than a word with a flashy backstory: 'probable' comes via French from Latin 'probabilis' — 'provable, credible' — itself from 'probare,' to test or approve (the ancestor of 'probe' and 'proof'). 'Cause' here means grounds or reason, from Latin 'causa.' The phrase hardened into fixed legal terminology in Anglo-American law, eventually anchored by the US Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which requires 'probable cause' before a warrant can issue — turning two ordinary words into one of the most litigated phrases in American law.
- the threshold
- more than suspicion, less than certainty
- warrant requirement
- cops need it before judges sign off
- nose knows
- a drug dog's alert alone can count
- born where
- fourth amendment, written 1791, argued forever since