DE: A visitor’s car parked outside a house being raided wasn’t enough to search it; here, however, the keys were found next to heroin inside, and that was enough

Defendant’s vehicle was parked outside of a house where a search was going down. Merely being outside isn’t cause to search the car. Finding the keys next to heroin inside was because that provided nexus to the drugs in the house. State v. Smith, 2018 Del. Super. LEXIS 261 (June 11, 2018).

Defendant’s motorcycle was pursued by the police and stopped. First, the search incident doctrine of Gant doesn’t support the search. Second, the automobile exception does apply, and the search was valid under that. The fact the officer pursued defendant in a police truck, not squad car, was not a factor under the Fourth Amendment. Third, the search was valid under the Fourth Amendment. Defendant’s argument that the officer didn’t closely follow the inventory policy of listing baggies isn’t important here because he didn’t consider them “valuable” and worth inventorying, which was consistent with the policy. United States v. Fitch, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104026 (N.D. Ind. June 21, 2018).*

This entry was posted in Nexus, Warrant execution. Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.