{"id":2749,"date":"2009-04-18T06:34:14","date_gmt":"2008-12-09T05:48:25","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-09T05:48:25","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=2749","title":{"rendered":"FL5: Former astronaut’s statement was taken in violation of Miranda<\/em> but the search of her car was valid as inevitable discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The stalking astronaut<\/a>‘s statement is invalid, but the search of her car is valid. While her statement to the police was suppressed, the location of her car with all the paraphernalia for the abduction was given in her statement, but the prosecution proved that their investigation would have led them to the car. Therefore, inevitable discovery applied. State v. Nowak<\/a>, 1 So. 3d 215 (Fla. App. 5th DCA 2008):<\/p>\n

Nowak disclosed the location of her car to police, as part of her illegally obtained statement<\/em>. However, the trial court found that law enforcement would have found the vehicle legally, even if Nowak had not led them to it. This finding is supported by competent, substantial evidence. The investigating officer testified about the normal investigative measures that he would have employed to find out what vehicles Nowak regularly drove (starting with a call to her employer, NASA) and also testified that his agency would have searched the hotel parking lot where the vehicle was found based upon a document in Nowak’s possession at the time of her arrest (which contained directions to this hotel). Accepting the trial court’s factual finding on this issue, we conclude that any evidence seized from Nowak’s car is admissible under the inevitable discovery doctrine, as long as law enforcement had a legal basis to search the car when they found it. See McDonnell v. State, 981 So. 2d 585, 591 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008) (“For the inevitable discovery doctrine to apply, the state must establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the police ultimately would have discovered the evidence independently of the improper police conduct by ‘means of normal investigative measures that inevitably would have been set in motion as a matter of routine police procedure.'”) (quoting Hatcher v. State, 834 So. 2d 314, 317-18 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003)).<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Applying this standard, as long as law enforcement had a practical, common-sense basis to conclude that Nowak’s car likely contained additional evidence of her alleged criminal conduct, they had probable cause to search the car. Id.<\/p>\n

In this case, the items already lawfully seized from Nowak, along with the victim’s statement to police, clearly indicated prior planning (Nowak knew of the victim and had traveled all the way from Texas to accost her with pepper spray, while wearing a disguise and carrying a CO2 powered BB pistol, a steel mallet, a buck knife, rubber tubing, and several large plastic bags). These facts and items also evidence a plan that likely extended beyond the airport parking lot. Given the backward-looking (prior planning) and forward-looking (future plan) nature of the facts known to law enforcement, separate and apart from any information illegally obtained from Nowak herself, it was simply a practical, common-sense conclusion that evidence of Nowak’s planning and plan would likely be found in the vehicle that brought her to the encounter, and to which she would return. This is all that was required to show probable cause. Id. Accordingly, we find that the trial court erred in its conclusion that law enforcement lacked probable cause to search the car and reverse that portion of the order that required suppression of the evidence seized from the car.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Officer stopped defendant for being in a high crime area known for prostitution after he stopped and talked to two women on the street and one got in the car. That was just a hunch for a stop. DUI arrest suppressed. State v. Priester<\/a>, 2008 Ohio 6285, 2008 Ohio App. LEXIS 5232 (8th Dist. December 4, 2008).*<\/p>\n

Trial court properly denied defendant’s motion to suppress where a CI arranged a buy which occurred with police surveillance, defendant left the buy and dropped an envelope in a trash can on the street with marijuana in it, and officers approached his car and saw marijuana in plain view. People v. Henderson<\/a>, 2008 NY Slip Op 9618, 2008 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 9251 (2d Dept. December 2, 2008).*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading →<\/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-2749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749","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=2749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}