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Alan Rockefeller
Mycologist


Registered: 03/10/07
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The Smell of a Burning Joint Does Not Justify a Warrantless Entry (DO NOT open the door!) [US]
#7996740 - 02/08/08 03:31 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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9. Search and Seizure: The Smell of a Burning Joint Does Not Justify a Warrantless Entry, US Fourth Circuit Holds http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/522/fourth_circuit_appeals_court_marijuana_smell_search_warrant
Police who entered an apartment after smelling marijuana being smoked there violated the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals held in a late January ruling. Evidence found during a subsequent search with a search warrant based on that illegal entry must also be thrown out, the court held.
The decision came in US v. Mowatt (http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/064886.P.pdf), in which Bladensburg, Maryland, police showed up at the door of Karim Mowatt's 10th floor apartment to investigate a noise complaint. They smelled marijuana and demanded they be allowed to enter the apartment, but Mowatt refused, repeatedly asking if they had a search warrant. Police then claimed they feared Mowatt had a weapon, forced their way in, and found guns and drugs. Police then used the evidence they found at the apartment to get a search warrant to further search the apartment. Based on contraband found there, Mowatt was charged with various drug and gun offenses.
Before trial, the trial judge denied Mowatt's motions to suppress the evidence, buying prosecutors' contentions that the warrantless entry was lawful because "the risk of destruction of the evidence of marijuana possession constituted exigent circumstances." Mowatt was found guilty in May 2006 and sentenced to a total of 16 years and 5 months.
The 4th Circuit disagreed, noting it was only the arrival of the offices at the door that created any exigent circumstances. "Although the officers had every right to knock on Mowatt's door to try to talk to him about the complaint... without a warrant, they could not require him to open it," Judge William B. Traxler Jr. wrote. The officers "needed only to seek a warrant before confronting the apartment's occupants," Traxler wrote. "By not doing so, they set up the wholly foreseeable risk that the occupants, upon being notified of the officers' presence, would seek to destroy the evidence of their crimes."
US Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who argued the case, wasn't happy, he told the Maryland Daily Record (http://www.mddailyrecord.com/article.cfm?id=4205&type=UTTM). "The implications of this opinion are very broad for what police officers should do in this situation -- which isn't an uncommon one," he said. He added that he is working with the Justice Department to decide whether to appeal the decision.
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mentalIMAGE
21st Century Schizoid Man



Registered: 04/29/06
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Loc: Canada
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Re: The Smell of a Burning Joint Does Not Justify a Warrantless Entry (DO NOT open the door!) [US] [Re: Alan Rockefeller]
#7996923 - 02/08/08 04:16 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Fantastic, now cops think it's alright to bust down your door because they smell something burning
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We are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we're in the present, but we aren't. The present we know is only a movie of the past. Ken Kesey
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Willsk8t4shrooms
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Re: The Smell of a Burning Joint Does Not Justify a Warrantless Entry (DO NOT open the door!) [US] [Re: mentalIMAGE]
#7996983 - 02/08/08 04:30 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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What about the presence of smoke?
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“we have some shroomers in aisle twelve, I repeat, shroomers on aisle twelve.”
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usg543
◕‿◕


Registered: 02/11/07
Posts: 5,192
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Re: The Smell of a Burning Joint Does Not Justify a Warrantless Entry (DO NOT open the door!) [US] [Re: Willsk8t4shrooms]
#7997528 - 02/08/08 06:42 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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don't have to open it unless they got a warrant... that's cool and all, but now they'll just go get their warrant first.
so dont open your door unless they got a warrant!
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Civ
Pinning



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Re: The Smell of a Burning Joint Does Not Justify a Warrantless Entry (DO NOT open the door!) [US] [Re: usg543]
#7998741 - 02/09/08 12:27 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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hell yeah it makes a big diff- +1 good guys -1 team cop.
-------------------- "...Gal's seem to hate the thought of blending chicken shit in a blender. So, wash it well afterwards & DON'T tell them..." -Agar
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Floop
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Re: The Smell of a Burning Joint Does Not Justify a Warrantless Entry (DO NOT open the door!) [US] [Re: Civ]
#7999345 - 02/09/08 08:03 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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So, from what Im reading you should actually let them in if they don't have a warrant
-------------------- "The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenatrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sent iment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself amoung profoundly religious men." -Albert Einstein
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Caribou_Lou
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Re: The Smell of a Burning Joint Does Not Justify a Warrantless Entry (DO NOT open the door!) [US] [Re: usg543]
#7999371 - 02/09/08 08:23 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
usg543 said: don't have to open it unless they got a warrant... that's cool and all, but now they'll just go get their warrant first.
so dont open your door unless they got a warrant!
i thought this was common sense, i don't open my door if i don't know who it is because my apartment always smells like pot.
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