what may or may not be hard reality

OMG! Fury Leika icon! Man, it was bizarre seeing Liz Vassey in Dr Horrible. I was all, what? What? heh heh heh.

Wearing a watch on the right hand sounds like grounds for bringing them in for questioning to determine first if they are left-handed, but not arrest them for murder.

Ha ha! You can get an arrest warrant for looking at someone funny over here! Seriously!

Okay, that's harsh. But JPs (justices of the peace - non-legally qualified mostly) can give out search warrants in the state of western australia (can't speak for the other states) so the ol' watch on the left arm things isn't a stretch at all.

The state of New York might be different. Crazy as it sounds, police powers in New York probably aren't as exstensive as they are over here. That pesky bill of rights just gets in the way... But it can be quite a personal thing from judge to judge and can depend a lot on how the cops present the evidence (i do recommendations for environmental notices that are based on similar standards of proof and it's quite interesting how different investigators - who are mostly ex-cops - will present different arguments).

Still, I'm with you. If it had been me issuing a warrant, I would have been highly skeptical and would have said, "so what else have you got?"