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Search w/o warrant or consent at party involving minor consumption

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DoctaPhil89

Junior Member
Indiana

A good friend recently held a birthday party in his garage. The police came and found there were a number of minors under the influence and started issuing tickets. Most of the kids cooperated without a probem. Nothing else really seemed to be suspicious, but the officers started rifling through the garage and tearing things apart. The owner, my friend, said to one of the corporals, "Stop doing that. Are you allowed to do that?" To which the officer replied, "Before you start being Mr. Amateur Lawyer...yeah, we can do that. They ended up finding a very small amount of marijuana dumped by a couple of the kids, as well as bullets someone had emptied, in the washing machine. My friend is currently waiting for a subpoena from court, but my question is...can he question that the search was permissable without warrant or consent? I tried looking through Indiana Constitution but to me it's like finding a needle in a haystack. I hope someone can answer this question, and if possible, cite the specific clause it appears in. Thank you.
 


xylene

Senior Member
Indiana

A good friend recently held a birthday party in his garage. The police came and found there were a number of minors under the influence and started issuing tickets. Most of the kids cooperated without a probem. Nothing else really seemed to be suspicious, but the officers started rifling through the garage and tearing things apart. The owner, my friend, said to one of the corporals, "Stop doing that. Are you allowed to do that?" To which the officer replied, "Before you start being Mr. Amateur Lawyer...yeah, we can do that. They ended up finding a very small amount of marijuana dumped by a couple of the kids, as well as bullets someone had emptied, in the washing machine. My friend is currently waiting for a subpoena from court, but my question is...can he question that the search was permissable without warrant or consent? I tried looking through Indiana Constitution but to me it's like finding a needle in a haystack. I hope someone can answer this question, and if possible, cite the specific clause it appears in. Thank you.
There are many circumstances when a search is permisssible without a warrant or consent

Who was charged with what?

How did the police come to be at this party?

How old are these minors? Under 18 or under 21?

Define 'bullets' - do you mean tiny sealed packets of cocaine/rock or do you mean like literally ammunition?

Did the police have to enter the garage - ie was the garage closed?
 

DoctaPhil89

Junior Member
I am unfamiliar with what exactly my friend is being charged with right now.

Someone came in and told everyone there were sqad cars outside so people turned off the lights and tried to be quiet which didn't work out lol.

Literal ammunition. I, as well as others, witnessed the person empty the ammunition into the washing machine.

There was I believe only one or two minors who were 17 (myself) and the rest were 18-20

The garage door was closed and the walk-in garage door was unlocked but closed. Without knocking, the officers simply waltzed in.
 

seniorjudge

Senior Member
You need to hire a lawyer.

Sounds like a search incident to an arrest, which is allowed.

But, obviously, you will want your lawyer to object to the search if anything found during the search will be used as evidence against you.
 

xylene

Senior Member
So did whoever empty the gun get busted for having a gun?

Bullets are not illegal, so your pal is safe on that.

Marijuana possssion? well its possible.

Given the circumstances and the arrests for drinking, the search is probably going to come in as a 'search incident to arrest' which would not require a warrant or consent.
 

tranquility

Senior Member
It depends on many things, but you may very well have a case. In a recent Indiana case at http://fourthamendment.com/blog/index.php?blog=1&s=drinking&sentence=AND in a civil suit regarding something like this (Although the discussion involves the issue of qualified immunity, it's relevant because the decision points to the fact that a reasonable officer should have known such a search was illegal.):
------------------------------
No qualified immunity to officer who entered a house without a warrant to break up an underage drinking party
I can't summarize this better than the judge did, and the court provides a good analysis of application of qualified immunity: Pribble v. Town of Winona Lake, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28517 (N.D. Ind. April 17, 2007):

According to Plaintiff Charles J. Pribble, Jr., in the early morning hours of May 15, 2005, Officer Paul Heaton was driving around a neighborhood of Winona Lake looking for an underage drinking party that was rumored to be occurring. When he saw a bunch of cars parked outside the Pribble home and saw through a large window that young people were drinking inside, he believed he had found what he was looking for. He knocked on the door to investigate, but when the wily person who answered the door asked if Heaton had a warrant, he replied that he didn't need one. Heaton then forcibly entered the house and arrested everyone inside, including Pribble. This left Pribble's father unhappy and prompted him to file a lawsuit in state court against Officer Heaton, the town of Winona Lake, and an unknown private security officer who allegedly accompanied Heaton during the raid. Defendants then removed the case to this Court. Pribble alleges violations of his Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment rights and a common law claim of false arrest and imprisonment.

. . .

Defendants maintain that Plaintiff's claim of unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment should be dismissed because Officer Heaton had probable cause to enter the home and make the arrest. The question of probable cause is typically "a proper issue for a jury if there is room for a difference of opinion concerning the facts or the reasonable inferences to be drawn from them." Maxwell v. City of Indianapolis, 998 F.2d 431, 434 (7th Cir. 1993). Defendants' own cases (most of which are Indiana state court cases, which do not control our interpretation of the federal Constitution) reflect this principle. See Earles v. Perkins, 788 N.E.2d 1260, 1264 (Ind. App. 2003) (reviewing grant of summary judgment; "The determination of probable cause is a mixed question of law and fact."); Miller v. City of Anderson, 77 N.E.2d 1100 (Ind. App. 2002) (affirming summary judgment; plaintiff's case must fail "if the record as a whole reflects probable cause for the arrest" (emphasis added)). Plaintiff's complaint alleges that "Heaton advises he allegedly observed an underage drinking party occurring by looking into the house from the road" (Compl. P 8 (emphasis added)), but the Court does not interpret that allegation to mean that Plaintiff admits Heaton's version of events or concedes that Heaton had probable cause.

More importantly, Defendants incorrectly assert that Heaton only needed probable cause in order to justify his entry into a private residence. That is plainly not the standard. In the absence of a warrant, a police officer needs both probable cause and the presence of exigent circumstances, such as a risk of physical harm or the imminent destruction of evidence, that make it reasonable for the officer to enter even though he does not have a warrant. United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 715 (1984) ("Searches and seizures inside a home without are presumptively unreasonable absent exigent circumstances."); Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 576, 590 (1980) (absent exigent circumstances, police officers may not enter an individual's home without consent in order to make a warrantless arrest for a felony, even if they have probable cause); Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 393-94 (1978) ("[W]arrants are generally required to search a person's home or his person unless 'the exigencies of the situation' make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that the warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.").

Taking the complaint on its face, Officer Heaton entered the house without a warrant because he saw some young people drinking inside, not because he perceived any particular danger or risk inside. Cf. Brigham City v. Stuart, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 1944 (2006) (exigent circumstances were present where officers, who had responded to a 3:00 a.m. call about loud party, heard an altercation as they approached the house, saw juveniles drinking in backyard, and upon looking through screen door and windows, saw an altercation in which a juvenile punched an adult, causing him to spit blood). Once inside, he began arresting people, including Plaintiff. The complaint does not indicate what Heaton saw when he entered the home, so it is unclear whether Heaton had probable cause to arrest Plaintiff once he was inside the house. The existence of both probable cause and exigent circumstances are issues that require the development of facts. See Jacobs v. City of Chicago, 215 F.3d 758, 770 (7th Cir. 2000) (dismissal was inappropriate where allegations in complaint gave no indication that exigent circumstances existed for warrantless search). For now, it is enough that Plaintiff has plainly stated a claim for relief under the Fourth Amendment.

Defendants insist, however, that Officer Heaton is entitled to qualified immunity for his actions. State officials occupying positions with discretionary authority and who are acting under color of state law may be immune from claims that he violated a plaintiff's constitutional rights. Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 231 (1991). But the pleading stage of a case is not the appropriate time to raise qualified immunity. As the Seventh Circuit has noted, "a complaint is usually not dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) on qualified immunity grounds." Alvarado v. Litscher, 267 F.3d 648, 651 (7th Cir. 2001). This is because qualified immunity is a defense. "Because an immunity defense usually depends on the facts of the case, dismissal at the pleading stage is inappropriate: '[T]he plaintiff is not required initially to plead factual allegations that anticipate and overcome a defense of qualified immunity.'" Id. at 651-52, quoting Jacobs, 215 F.3d at 765 n.3.

To evaluate a defense of qualified immunity, the Court must first determine whether Plaintiff has stated a violation of his constitutional rights, and then determine whether those rights were clearly established at the time that the violation allegedly occurred. Jacobs, 215 F.3d at 766. The first step has been satisfied; as discussed above, we have already determined that Plaintiff has stated a claim for violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. In order to satisfy the second step, the plaintiff must show that, in light of pre-existing law, a reasonable defendant would have known that his conduct was unlawful. Anderson v. Creighton, 433 U.S. 635, 60 (1987). It has been clearly established since the Supreme Court decided Coolidge v. New Hampshire in 1971 or Payton v. New York in 1980, that "a search and seizure carried out on a suspect's premises without a warrant is per se unreasonable, unless the police can show that it falls within one of a carefully defined set of exceptions based on the presence of 'exigent circumstances.'" Coolidge, 403 U.S. 443, 474-75 (1971). Because we don't know at this point what the circumstances were on the night in question, dismissal on qualified immunity grounds is plainly inappropriate.
 

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