I think the cops had every right to knock down the door to check for other people. The perp had already demonstrated he'd attack people and there was blood visible in the house. If the cops had not checked the entire house and there was another victim we'd all be vilifying the cops for not doing there job.
BUT, when they busted in the door under exigent circumstances and they did NOT find other victims, anything else they find is NOT admissible.
So, still a bad ruling for the court!
Brian
Not exactly correct. You are right in that under the Community Caretaker exemption, they are allowed to check the whole house for additional vicitms, including behind locked doors due to the situation presented to them. If they find something illegal in the course of that search, it can still be used in court. The courts have looked at it that the police have to put the care of others first though in these cases. So, for example, they would take care of the medical needs of the people first and come back at a later time with an arrest warrant as opposed to just arresting the person right there.
The cops had already seen some pot in "plain sight".
I don't know the intricacies when the person voluntarily let's the cops and they see pot or whatever in plain sight. But I hardly think it's cut and dry.
The cops claiming they were looking another possible victim seems a stretch to me, but we've got no details.
Also, part of the problem here seems to be that the (new) judge wasn't present for some of the arguments. While that surely seems a poor procedure I don't see how it's got anything to do with 'search seizure'. I would think it a 'due process' issue (also under the 4th).
Fern
I don't think it's too much of stretch to think that someone could have been in that room. For example, guy gets in a bloody fight with someone else and retreats to his room and locks the door and then falls unconscious. The big question I see is how long it took them before they entered the room.
While 20 minutes might not be that long, I would look at what they were doing during that 20 minutes. Did they finish their search and were sitting around for 15 minutes before they tried to enter the room? Did they start collecting evidence in the rest of the house and then decide to enter the room? Did they just finish the search of the rest of the house and then were arguing with the guy to open the door so they can check to see if anyone was in there?
With regards to the new judge not hearing the arguments, that is an interesting issue.
Fern, I'd think if they saw pot then an expedited warrant would be no problem to get within 15 mins or so. There really is no need here to potentially mess up the chain of evidence. Seeing pot doesn't count as an eminent threat that needs to be resolved immediately.
I'll be curious to see where this goes. If there was yelling coming from the room or a trail of blood into the room then that is a much different situation.
There's really no such thing as an expedited warrant. A search warrant just takes as long as it takes to write it out, get it signed, and then serve it. It does take time. In most cases, the fastest you'll get one written, signed, and served would probably be at least an hour (if not more) depending on travel time.
I'm just not clear on the details of how this works. E.g., if cops smell pot at a traffic stop can't they search the driver/passenger for more? I thought the answer yes.
So, if the cops are permitted to enter and see pot, can't they search for more? I would've thought yes also.
Fern
In the case of a car, the Supreme Court has given an exception, known as the Carroll Doctrine. The idea behind that is that a vehicle is movable, so in the time that it takes for the police to get a warrant, the vehicle could be gone. If the police have probable cause to search the vehicle (plain smell or plain view), they are allowed to perform that search without a warrant.
In the case of a house, the police have to get a warrant. So, in this case, they had consent to enter the house. Upon entering, they see the marijuana, so they now have probable cause to believe that marijuana is in the house. They have two options at this point. They can either just take what is in plain sight and that's it or they can write a search warrant to search the rest of the house.
In your example they are looking for something they believe to be in the vehicle based on the smell they haven't yet found. In this case they had the pot and would need probable cause to think there was more pot in the room. They can search the immediate area of the arrest. I don't think they can randomly search a whole house on a fishing expedition.
See above.
With regard to the arrest, the police can search the area immediately surrounding someone (their wingspan) when they make an arrest. As this was a community caretaker search though, they should not have been making an arrest at that time though, unless they were arresting the guy for the assault itself.
- Merg
