Protective sweep of a locked room was permissible. United States v. Hoskins, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103445 (E.D. Mich. September 13, 2011):<\/p>\n
The government responds that despite the remote possibility that someone may have been inside Defendant’s room, it was not impossible. Locking a person into a room is a repeated phenomena in the annals of criminal law. E.g. United States v. Sanford, 2009 WL 2197373, *1 (M.D. Ala. 2009) (Informant observed that drug dealer kept a woman locked in a room in the house where the dealer lived and sold drugs); United States v. Juarado-Lopez, 338 F. Supp. 2d 246, 253 (D. Mass. 2004) (Drug \u201cmule\u201d was locked in a room and forced to insert packages into her body cavities); McWhorter v. United States, 281 F. 119, 120 (6th Cir. 1922) (Two people locked in a room and regularly given narcotics). It was therefore appropriate for the officers to open the lock on the door and enter Defendant\u2019s room to ensure that the room was \u201cclear\u201d of any person who might threaten the safety of others present or otherwise be engaged in criminal conduct. That conduct could well include destroying evidence by a variety of means, including by consuming it. There is nothing to suggest that the items subsequently seized from Defendant’s room were observed during the protective sweep, and these items were not used to demonstrate probable cause in the affidavit for the search warrant. … Defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence that was seized from his room will be denied.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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