Illegal Search/Harrassment

What is the name of your state? Tn

my boyfriend and i have lived in the same apartment for about 2 years now...we're friends with all the neighbors except for the two directly on the left of us...they kept inviting us over for drinks and dinner (but they also kept trying to give us some of their old porn dvds) we thought they were creepy so we never would come over for dinner...so of course now they hate us. (that's just a little background for the story)...

about six months after moving in the police started showing up at our door late at night (10pm, 11pm, 12am) for "noise complaints" "twenty cars in the driveways and a loud party" and then eventually for "code 12 dealing reports" (which i found out was marijuana). we were always in bed or eating dinner when they showed up...no parties...no people over...nothing. the last two times they showed up i allowed them to search the house and nothing was found. then an officer from a neighboring county showed up for a complaint one night and i wouldnt allow him in b/c he wasn't in his jurisdiction and called both my county's dispatch and his county's dispatch to find out he was not dispatched from anywhere to my apartment....which led me to believe he was my neighbors friend doing them a "favor".

we had told our neighbors we were moving b/c someone obviously didnt like us and i was tired of dealing with....the above mentioned neighbors said they had no idea who would do that and that we were great neighbors and that they hoped we didnt move. eventually i went and purchased the police reports only to find it was them calling the WHOLE time! at the bottom of each report it said that nothing was found and that it was a false report. i was advised to file a harrassment suit but i didn't b/c i didn't want more problems with these neighbors since i have to see them on a daily basis.

so yesterday my boyfriend calls me at work to tell me that he's being arrested by undercover officers at our house for an old warrant from a speeding ticket he'd forgotten to pay.

so when i get home from work and get my boyfriend out of jail for a $80 ticket from forever ago...he tells me that some guys in normal clothes knocked on the door and he thought they were just sales men...they asked to step in and he allowed them just in the foyer. then they pulled out badges from under their shirts and sat my boyfriend down and told him that we had been reported for having a methlab running in our house! they asked to search, and since we certainly have no methlab, my bf told them to go ahead. they went through everything...even my stuff..and i was not there to consent to that. can my boyfriend consent to have MY things searched that are obviously NOT his things to consent to?? could a room mate consent to have the other room mate's stuff searched? its basically the same thing...we have very separate rooms of the apartment for our own thing..they had no warrant. and they just came on someone's word that we were running a freakin' methlab?? my bf said they even told him "someone just doesnt like you, sorry we had to search for a methlab"

anywho...they obviously found no methlab or anything related to it but my boyfriend offered up a piece of smoking paraphanelia and under one gram of marijuana. so now he's charged with those as well.

he also said the undercovers asked for my full name, my parents name (im 25..), my place of employment...???

as the undercovers were searching my place a friend had stopped by and knocked on the door...an undercover opened the door with no badge showing, told my friend to step inside, then pulled his badge and gun on him. he told him he was bringing the drug dog to his car if he wasn't going to give them what he had and he gave them an old end of a joint out of his ash tray. then he proceeded to place our friend and his girlfriend on the hood of their car out in the middle of all my neighbors to see and searched them and their car for about an hour after he gave them what he had. now they charged with simple possession as well.

sorry for the long story...just wanna get all the details out.. my main questions are...

A.) can someone else consent to my things being searched?
B.) and how can i find out who called the drug task force and told them i had a meth lab in my residence KNOWING that it was false? if i find out its the same neighbors can i sue for harrassment or slander? perhaps even if its not the same neighbor..
i work in the real estate industry and having that said about me could ruin my career...
C.) were they allowed to demand my friend consent to a search and/or bring the drug dogs to his car just because he was on my front porch?? he didn't have anything in plain sight or give them any reason to think he was doing anything illegal...

thanks in advance for your help. i want to get a lawyer for all this but i want to make sure there's a case there first...What is the name of your state?

Your boyfriend consented to a search and they charged him based on HIS stuff they found. Your friend consented to a search and they charged him based on HIS stuff they found.
You didn't consent to a search, but nothing was found and you weren't charged with anything.

Consent to search your stuff is irrelevant.
BF is in a bad place and needs a lawyer.
Friend is only slightly better off and needs a lawyer too.

i may not have been charged with anything but i dont think its irrelevant.

i am not okay with strange men picking through my underwear drawer and ransacking my private belongings without me saying they were allowed to. i think i have a right to feel violated and the right to do something about it.

my bf and friends consented with the threat that drug dogs would be brought through...they were just trying to be cooperative. i thought there was something about consent under duress...also the length of time of the search after things were voluntarily handed over doesn't seem right to me...but im not a lawyer...i dont know.

but what about the crazy neighbors filing false reports against me? people shouldn't be allowed to get away with stuff like that. filing false reports is a crime correct?

blustarz said:

they asked to search, and since we certainly have no methlab, my bf told them to go ahead. they went through everything...even my stuff..and i was not there to consent to that.

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He had access, you shared the same spaces, he arguably had the authority to authorize a search of even your belongings.

Had anything been found that was used against you, your attorney could move to suppress any evidence and he might succeed. But, as it was, no evidence was found so there is no remedy for the search of your belongings even on the chance a court decides that your belongings are distinct and separate enough from his such that he did not have the authority to grant consent and the officers should have reasonably known this.

he also said the undercovers asked for my full name, my parents name (im 25..), my place of employment...???

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They're cops - they're nosy that way.

A.) can someone else consent to my things being searched?

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When your lives are so intertwined as to effectively be married, yes. Unless you had separate rooms and distinctly separate dressers, etc., the police likely had no reasonable belief that he did NOT have the authority to consent to a search of your mutual belongings.

B.) and how can i find out who called the drug task force and told them i had a meth lab in my residence KNOWING that it was false?

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Presumably reports will be available to the defense prior to trial. Calls to the police may be available as public records as well.

if i find out its the same neighbors can i sue for harrassment or slander? perhaps even if its not the same neighbor..

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You can pay a lawyer to sue anyone for anything. Whether you can prove that they made a knowing and intentional false complaint is questionable.

C.) were they allowed to demand my friend consent to a search and/or bring the drug dogs to his car just because he was on my front porch?? he didn't have anything in plain sight or give them any reason to think he was doing anything illegal...

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His attorney can argue as part of a motion to suppress that consent was not freely given. That's a decision for them to make.

- Carl

Legally speaking, all an illegal search would mean is that there is a potential to make sure anything found could not be used against you. Since nothing was found, the only thing you can really do at this point is submit a personnel complaint against the officer.

i wasn't there...i have no idea who the officers were. they were not in uniform...they were undercover narcotics agents...i didnt even know my little county had such a thing...i tried to call the narcotics division yesterday and find out what i can do about this and they told me nothing, of course..

the guy actually told me that if i could prove who called in the false report they would do something about it...but he couldnt let me get a report or tell me how to go about getting one...so i guess im supposed to magically come up with that out of thin air...

im just so mad b/c i dont think someone who doesnt like you should just be allowed to call an agency and say "so and so has such and such in their house" and then they can just come look through all your stuff and treat you like a criminal even though you're not.

i have an appointment with an attorney monday...so we'll see. thanks for all your replies.

blustarz said:

i have an appointment with an attorney monday...so we'll see. thanks for all your replies.

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Yeah...tell us how that turns out

blustarz said:

im just so mad b/c i dont think someone who doesnt like you should just be allowed to call an agency and say "so and so has such and such in their house" and then they can just come look through all your stuff and treat you like a criminal even though you're not.

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The call did not do that - they received consent. A court may decide that the consent was not freely given, but that's going to be based upon the totality of the circumstances.

It's unlikely that if this person had made so many groundless complaints that the police would not turn around and smack the complaining party down a tad. We don't like being used any more than you like to be the victim of such false reports. So, either the cops had some reason to believe that what they were being told might be true, or, the agency lacks the political will to question these kinds of calls.


- Carl