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CA4: Officers in a house by consent could follow a blood trail

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

District Court erred in granting a motion to suppress in the face of broad consent to search. The officers inside observed a blood trail in the house, and they would have been derelict in not following it. United States v. Coleman, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 26412 (4th Cir. December 4, 2009): Not only was the bedroom within the scope of the consent search, but the officers also would have been derelict in their duty not to follow a blood trail from the kitchen. Far from not being part of the crime scene, as Coleman argues, see Br. of Appellee 15, nothing less than a trail of blood led to the master bedroom from the kitchen where the shooting occurred. Further, at the time of the search the officers had no way of knowing whose blood trail they were following...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on December 07, 2009 (boomark / email).