KY: Search incident to arrest could precede the arrest

The CI here was getting calls from the defendant about defendant selling him drugs, so he called the police to set him up. He was wired and took marked money. The seizure of the pill bottle off defendant was with probable cause and valid as incident to arrest, although it preceded it. (Defendant concedes the timing of the search; the only issue was the reliability of the known informant. Wasn’t the product of the wire enough?) Patton v. Commonwealth, 2014 Ky. App. LEXIS 68 (April 25, 2014).

The district court’s findings that the officers were credible on an issue carries with it an implicit finding the defense witnesses were not. Search issue reaffirmed after remand for the government. United States v. Ambrose, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 7822, 2014 FED App. 0311N (6th Cir. April 24, 2014), on remand from United States v. Beals, 698 F.3d 248 (6th Cir. 2012).*

A kid walking home from school saw a marijuana plant in a backyard. He told the police. They saw the plant, and they went to the house. An older man there said the plant belonged to his son who lived in the basement with his girlfriend. At the basement, officers did a knock and talk and got consent to search, finding suboxone (prescription synthentic heroin). The son rolled on his supplier, an Hispanic male who drives a light colored SUV who delivered heroin to him five times in a DAP caulk container. The police got a line on who he was, and the son set up a buy while they were listening on the call. Other officers tailed the SUV making the delivery to the house planning to stop it if there was a traffic offense, but there wasn’t. When the vehicle pulled up at the house, officers made a felony stop and searched the car. On the totality with all this specificity, there was probable cause for the stop, arrest, and search of the car. State v. Granados, 2014-Ohio-1758, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 1725 (5th Dist. April 24, 2014).