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MT: Appellate court can apply inevitable discovery sua sponte

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

An appeals court can apply the inevitable discovery doctrine on its own motion. Inevitable discovery is similar to harmless error. State v. Dickinson, 2008 MT 159, 2008 Mont. LEXIS 229 (May 6, 2008): [*P20] As indicated above, the parties did not argue to the District Court or to this Court the "inevitable discovery" doctrine. And while we acknowledge that we do not traditionally address legal theories not raised by the parties, there are limited analyses in which this Court frequently engages, even if the parties have not urged us to do so. A classic example is the "harmless error" analysis, which is similar to the inevitable discovery exception. In the typical "harmless error" situation, a defendant argues that a claimed error requires reversal, and in response the State asserts that no error occurred...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on May 08, 2008 (boomark / email).