Articles Posted in Search and Seizure

The law regarding searches and seizures recently changed removing a fairly common justification for police to search a person’s vehicle after he/she has been arrested. Prior to the change in the law, police officers could search a person’s vehicle after arresting him/her for a crime in or near the vehicle. After the arrest, the police were permitted to search the vehicle compartment for illegal drugs, guns or any other evidence. However, the law changed and now prohibits police officers from automatically searching a person’s vehicle after an arrest in each case.

Under the new law, police are still allowed to search a vehicle after an occupant has been arrested but only in more limited circumstances. Now, after an occupant has been arrested, the police can only search the vehicle if the occupant is unsecured and within arm’s reach of the inside of the vehicle or if the police officer has a specific reason to believe there is evidence of a crime in the vehicle. This change in the law should significantly limit searches of vehicles after an occupant’s arrest when in the past it was basically automatically allowed. When the police officer arrests an occupant, the officer is going to handcuff that person and put him/her in the police car. It is rare for a person to be unsecured and near his/her vehicle after the arrest. This would eliminate the first basis for searching the vehicle in most cases. Of course, the second basis still may exist- that the police officer has a reason to believe there is evidence of a crime in the vehicle, but the police officer must have a specific reason for the search. The police officer cannot rely upon the belief that there must be evidence of drugs or other criminal activity in the vehicle just because they arrested an occupant of the vehicle fro a drug-related or other crime.

If the police in Florida do search a vehicle after they have arrested and secured an occupant without a specific basis for the search, the criminal defense lawyer can file a motion to suppress any evidence found as a result of the illegal search.

Each person in Florida has a Constitutionally protected right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. If a police officer has probable cause to believe a person is committing a crime, the police officer may be able to stop a person and conduct a search. However, when the officer assumes a person is committing a crime or is going on a hunch or suspicion, any stop and search of the suspect will likely be illegal and result in the evidence recovered being thrown out of court.

In a recent case near Jacksonville, Florida, a police officer was driving through an area that had experienced many recent burglaries and other criminal activity. However, he was not actually responding to a burglary call or a call of any specific criminal activity. While driving through the area, he saw the defendant standing next to a car in the parking lot of a closed business late at night. When the defendant saw the police officer, he entered the vehicle and drove off quickly. The police officer then stopped the defendant. A K-9 walked around the car and alerted to the odor of illegal drugs. The police officer searched the defendant’s car and found marijuana and a handgun inside. The defendant was arrested for possession of marijuana and carrying a concealed firearm without a permit.

The criminal defense lawyer filed a motion to suppress the evidence of the marijuana and the firearm. The court agreed, and the marijuana and gun charges were thrown out. Because the police officer did not observe the defendant engaging in any criminal activity, he was not authorized to stop him and search his vehicle.

Police in Putnam County, Florida (which is about an hour south of Jacksonville, Florida) found a large indoor marijuana grow house after a vehicle crashed through a fence at the house, according to an article on News4Jax.com. Police arrived to investigate the crash and smelled the marijuana. At that point, they obtained a search warrant for the house and found 227 marijuana plants and 143 marijuana grow lights. No one was at the home when the police found the marijuana and marijuana growing equipment, but the police are trying to determine who is responsible for the house and marijuana and believe the marijuana grow house is being used to grow marijuana and transport it to south Florida.

Normally, the police in Florida are not allowed to go into a person’s home or through a fence at a person’s home without permission from the homeowner or a search warrant signed by a judge. However, there can be an exception for either emergency situations or where the police are lawfully there for another reason. For instance, if there is an auto accident at someone’s home, the police have a right to investigate that accident. If they find evidence of illegal activity while they are lawfully investigating the accident, they would have the right to investigate that criminal activity. Of course, there are limits to what the police can do when they are investigating an accident. The police cannot use it as an excuse to look around someone’s home to see if there is any evidence unrelated to the accident.

In this case, it would be important to know exactly what the police did and where they went to determine that there was marijuana in the house. If the police discovered the marijuana during the course of their normal accident investigation, the investigation may be legal. If the police started searching around the property when it was not necessary to investigate the accident, the search for the marijuana may be illegal and any evidence of the marijuana may not be used against whomever may get arrested for cultivating marijuana in this case.

Because people in Florida have a Constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures as well as a privacy right in their homes, police can only search one’s residence for drugs, guns or other evidence in limited circumstances. The two primary bases for legally searching one’s home are consent to search and a valid search warrant. However, there may be other circumstances where a police search is legal.

For instance, in a recent cultivation of marijuana case near Jacksonville, Florida the police had an arrest warrant for the defendant’s roommate. They both lived in a mobile home. An arrest warrant is just what it sounds like- it gives the police the right to arrest the person listed in the warrant, but it is not a search warrant so it does not give the police the specific right to search anything in particular. However, in this case, the police arrived at the mobile home, and the person in the arrest warrant answered the door. That person asked the police if he could retrieve some of his things, and the police followed him inside. The person was looking back into the mobile home and acting nervously as if someone else was in the mobile home. The police officers called out to anyone else in the mobile home, but no one responded. The officers then walked around the mobile home to see if anyone else was present and found several marijuana plants and marijuana cultivation equipment in one of the rooms. They also found the defendant who was arrested for felony possession of marijuana and cultivation of marijuana.

The criminal defense lawyer for the defendant tried to have the evidence of the marijuana thrown out based on the argument that the search was illegal. The criminal defense attorney argued that the police officers did not have a search warrant or consent to search the mobile home so the search was illegal and any drug evidence found was inadmissible in court. However, there is an exception to the general rule that the police cannot search a home without a search warrant or consent that the court found applied in this case. When the police make an arrest in one’s home, if they have a legitimate reason to believe someone else may be present who may pose a danger to the police, they can search the immediate area for their safety. This is called a protective sweep. If they happen to find marijuana or other evidence of a crime during this protective sweep, they are authorized to seize it and use it against the suspect in a criminal case.

In this case the police officer was responding to a call regarding a missing juvenile. He went to a facility where juveniles stayed and spent time playing games and meeting with others. When he arrived, he saw the juvenile defendant in this case sleeping in the common area. There were some clothes and a bag near the defednat. Antoehr girl was sleeping near the defendant. A pipe was partially visible in the bag and close to the defendant and the girl. The police officer rertrieved the pipe from the bag which had marijuana resideu in it. The defendant admitted the pipe was his and arrested the juvenile.

Normally, when the police want to search someone or something, the police officer needs a search warrant. However, one exception to the seaarch warrant requirement occurs when the police officer sees something in plain view which is obviously evidence of a crime. This does not mean the police officer can walk into someone’s house or open someone’s bag and then seize a bag of marijuana that is in plan view at that point. One requirement of the plain view doctrine is that the police officer has a right to be where he/she is when the police officer sees the illegal item in plain view.

In this case, the judge threw out the evidence of the pipe and the marijuana inside because there was insufficient evidence to believe the partially concealed pipe was obviously illegal drug paraphernalia at the time the officer saw it. The officer could not see the entire pipe so it could have been something else. Even it was clearly a pipe, the officer did not see the marijuana resideu inside. It could have contained regular tobacco which is not illegal. Beause it was not clear that the pipe was evidence of illegal activity when the officer first saw it, the police officer did not have a right to take it from the juvenile’s bag. As a result, that evidence was thrown out and the possession of marijuana charge was dropped.

In a recent marijuana case out of South Florida, the court threw out the evidence of the defendant’s marijuana possession because the police used an unreasonable show of force to gain access to the defendant’s residence. In this case, six police officers went to the defendant’s home because he had several recent encounters with the police. The police officers showed up at the defendant’s home without a search warrant. The officers knocked on the door and told the defendant they had a tip that he was cultivating marijuana in the residence. They asked the defendant if they could search his house for marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia. The defendant consented, and the police officers found marijuana growing in his garage.

The defendant was arrested for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and other related charges. However, in court his criminal defense lawyer filed a motion to suppress, or throw out, all of the evidence of the marijuana because the police used an unreasonable show of force in getting him to consent to the police search.

In general, if the police ask to search something (i.e. a person, vehicle, home) for illegal drugs and the subject agrees, the police have a right to conduct that search without a search warrant. However, the police are not permitted to use intimidation, force or the threat of force to obtain that consent to search. Therefore, consent may become invalid not just due to actual force by police but also based on circumstances that make a person feel like he/she has no choice but to consent. In this case, the fact that several police officers confronted and surrounded the defendant was evidence of an unreasonable show of force and invalidated his consent. If the police had a justifiable reason to believe the defendant had marijuana in the house, they should have taken the appropriate steps to obtain a search warrant prior to searching the house.

Police in Florida and Georgia are on the lookout for homes in which marijuana is being grown. Marijuana grow houses, as they are often called, often use elaborate equipment to create an environment where marijuana can be successfully grown in the privacy of one’s home. The downside to that for people growing marijuana is that the police have learned certain tactics that help them locate these grow houses. They may look at electric bills, and when they find an electric bill that is much higher for one house than similar houses in the neighborhood, this raises suspicion that marijuana is being grown inside because the lights that are used to grow the marijuana use a lot of electricity. Police also look for houses with security cameras outside as people growing marijuana or storing drugs in their home often have security cameras outside to alert them when people are approaching.

Sometimes, the police come across a marijuana grow house by accident. In St. Marys, Georgia, which is about an hour north of Jacksonville, Florida, police were investigating a house fire on 4th Street that was caused by a generator used to power the lights that helped grow the marijuana. When the police went to investigate the fire, they found the marijuana plants inside a room in the home. Normally, the police are not allowed to enter a home without a search warrant signed by a judge. However, in certain emergency circumstances and/or circumstances where the police or fire department are conducting a valid investigation, i.e. a house fire investigation, the police can enter the home to follow up on the emergency or investigate the fire. If they come across the marijuana plants or other evidence of illegal activity, they are permitted to investigate the new evidence. In this case, not only did they find the marijuana grow house when they investigated the fire, but they also found documents in that house which informed them of the location of another grow house. These documents may have given the police probable cause to obtain a search warrant for the second house, depending on what was in those documents.

This case will likely result in some interesting search and seizure issues that can be challenged by the criminal defense lawyers for the people charged with growing the marijuana. However, people need to understand that some of the items that accompany these marijuana grow houses, such as generators, lighting equipment and large electric bills, can alert police to the existence and location of a marijuana grow house.