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Rights in a rented motel room

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notguiltyinks

Junior Member
What is the name of your state? Kansas. If I rent a motel room for a night, and the police knock on the door,do I have to even answer it? Do they have to have a warrant to come in and search? If I do let them in and give them permission to search and they find something illegal up under a chair that was left by a previous renter, will i be charged with t?
 


outonbail

Senior Member
notguiltyinks said:
What is the name of your state? Kansas. If I rent a motel room for a night, and the police knock on the door,do I have to even answer it?
I've never heard of any law that would make not answering a knock at the door, a crime. Likewise, if your phone rings and you decide not to answer it, you are not committing a crime. If your alarm clock rings and you don't get out of bed, still no jail time. If the check engine light comes on in your vehicle and you don't have it checked, there's no need to hide from the police. In fact, you could spend your entire life sitting on a couch and ignoring every sight and sound around you and still die without a criminal record.

Do they have to have a warrant to come in and search?
Depends on the situation, there are many situations where they do not. If you would like, you could post exactly what you've done or plan on doing and/or who and what your hiding, or hiding from and you will receive an answer tailored to your particular paranoia.

If I do let them in and give them permission to search and they find something illegal up under a chair that was left by a previous renter, will i be charged with t?
Not sure what being charged with "t" is. So, depending what "t" is, there are again, way too many variables to provide an accurate answer. But lets say "t" was the dismembered body of your ex-spouse and during the gruesome discovery, you were filling out claim forms to collect the proceeds from a recently purchased life insurance policy. Then, I would say yes, you will be arrested,,,,, especially if you were the previous renter,,, or were wearing a blood soaked butchers smock,,,,,,

You should probably reconsider whatever it is your planning to do and looking for a way of escaping the charges for.
But as a general rule, you can be fairly certain that the police do not hang around hotels so they can knock on random doors, to look under chairs for no reason at all. At least it has never happened to me or anyone I know or have heard of.
If it makes you feel any less paranoid about this scenerio happening to you, maybe you should search under the chairs when you first enter your rented room, so you can beat the cops to the contraband and flush it before they come knocking?
 

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