{"id":1140,"date":"2007-07-17T06:58:24","date_gmt":"2007-07-12T11:14:36","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-12T11:14:36","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=1140","title":{"rendered":"Meth lab smell coming from a motel room was exigent circumstances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A motel room occupant noted a strange smell coming from another room, and he called the police. They determined that it was the smell of a meth lab, and that was exigent circumstances to enter. The defendant was unconscious inside from inhaling the chemicals. State v. Meeks, 2007 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 542 (July 10, 2007):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In accordance with the reasoning of Castile, we conclude that a warrantless search of the Defendants&#8217; hotel room was proper. Our review of the record convinces us that the Defendants&#8217; actions did indeed present an immediate threat to public safety. An occupant of the hotel called the authorities complaining of a smell that she suspected was associated with the manufacture of methamphetamine, possibly coming from the room next door. Officer Caldwell arrived on the scene, spoke with the complainant, and detected the odor coming from Room 110. Officer Peterson described the smell as &#8220;[s]trong[,]&#8221; and Corporal Gray noted a &#8220;very strong&#8221; odor emanating from the room. When the door was opened, a &#8220;chemical cloud&#8221; came out of the room. &#8220;Air suits&#8221; were required before Officer Caldwell and Coroporal Gray could reenter the room to remove the unconscious Defendant Meeks from the room. According to Officer Caldwell, the situation was &#8220;[v]ery, very dangerous[,]&#8221; and this laboratory was &#8220;more dangerous&#8221; than usual. The occupants of the adjoining rooms were evacuated following entry into Room 110. Officer Caldwell described the dangers to the occupants: &#8220;They faced inhaling toxic chemicals. They risked the danger of an explosion and fire. It could be fatal.&#8221; A &#8220;haz-mat&#8221; team was called to the scene. Both of the Defendants were taken to the hospital, and Defendant Meeks was hospitalized for several days following this incident. Furthermore, the officers involved were experienced with cases involving the manufacturing of methamphetamine. Therefore, we conclude that probable cause to search was present and accompanied by exigent circumstances&#8211;the dangers associated with the active production of methamphetamine in a hotel room.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Citizen informant&#8217;s tip to police led to stop and defendant&#8217;s conduct was suspicious during the stop. United States v. Santon, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49569 (D. Neb. July 10, 2007).*<\/p>\n<p>Stop for a traffic offense had the added suspicion of a DEA wiretap talking about transporting cocaine. The defendant&#8217;s admission he was an illegal alien all added up to probable cause for a search.  United States v. Tovar-Aldaco, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49727 (E.D. Mo. July 10, 2007).*<\/p>\n<p><em>Dunaway<\/em> claim of unlawful arrest leading to confession was barred by <em>Stone v. Powell.<\/em> Ramdeo v. Phillips, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49483 (E.D. N.Y. July 6, 2007).*<\/p>\n<p>Subpoena to provide handwriting examplars is not a seizure. In re Grand Jury Subpoena, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96459 (M.D. Fla. February 8, 2006).*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>b2evALnk.b2WPAutP <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=1140\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}