IA: Passenger in a car being impounded should have been permitted to keep her purse and not leave it in car

Defendant was a passenger in a car stopped for expired tags. She should have been allowed to keep her purse when she got out of the car. Instead, she was told to leave it in the car, and then it was searched in the car when the car was impounded. Suppressed. State v. Campbell, 2017 Iowa App. LEXIS 777 (Aug. 2, 2017).

Defendant was living in a woman’s camper that had been raised off the ground and not movable. It was otherwise used solely for storage in and under it. He was homeless and she let him stay there for a while, but she still went in and out of the storage camper. When the next door neighbor was murdered, defendant became a suspect. The police sought to search the camper, and the owner gave consent. The police reasonably believed she had apparent authority over her own camper because it was on her property and she still freely used it. Moreover, the evidence the police obtained was found under it, not in it. Wahl v. State, 2017 Alas. App. LEXIS 132 (Aug. 4, 2017).*

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