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CA4: Request to remove a man with a gun implicitly consents to search for the gun after he's found without it

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

The police were called over a domestic dispute where a woman complained that defendant threatened her with a gun. Defendant was handcuffed and removed from the basement. The gun wasn’t found, and the officer returned to the basement to look for it. He searched and didn’t find it, and reported back to the other officer. He went back to the basement, and he noticed that a ceiling tile was ajar. He looked up there and found a gun. The woman’s consent to go look for him implicitly included looking for the gun, too, and her suppression hearing testimony to the contrary was rejected. United States v. Toyer, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 4235 (4th Cir. February 25, 2011) (unpublished): We found, in Hylton, implicit consent to search the apartment in which the defendant and his girlfriend lived based on the circumstances and the girlfriend’s words...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on March 08, 2011 (boomark / email).