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IN: Consent to enter a hotel room was not consent to search it

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Consent to enter a hotel room was not consent to search it. Smith v. State, 2008 Ind. App. LEXIS 1404 (July 8, 2008): Even assuming that Hardy's act of opening the door and letting the officers in constituted consent to enter, no reasonable person could have interpreted this to mean that the officers also had consent to search the premises. Cf. Buckley v. State, 797 N.E.2d 845, 849-51 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003) (concluding officer's removal of the lid to a small tin exceeded the scope of consent where the officer asked the defendant if he could search the house to see if anyone else was present and the defendant replied that the officers could "go ahead and check ... anything [they] want[ed]"). Thus, it follows that Corporal Hoover did not have consent from Hardy or Smith to search the toilet...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on July 12, 2008 (boomark / email).