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GA: Unlawful entry and ordering defendant out of shower at gunpoint tainted consent

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Unlawful entry into defendant's hotel room and getting him out of the shower at gunpoint did not make his consent voluntary. Snider v. State, 2008 Ga. App. LEXIS 727 (June 24, 2008) When a consent to search follows an illegal entry, we examine the totality of the circumstances to determine whether the consent was voluntary because it was obtained by means sufficiently attenuated or distinguishable from the illegality to be purged of any taint, or whether the consent was invalid because it was the product of and tainted by the illegality. ... Here, the officers illegally entered the hotel room, ordered Snider out of the shower at gunpoint, and immediately obtained his consent to search his clothes as he stood before the officers wrapped in a towel...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on June 28, 2008 (boomark / email).