Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Fourth Amendment

Criminal Law

: Fourth Amendment

OR: Telling defendant he was free to go and back up officer asking for consent was unreasonable, but one officer OK

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Telling the defendant he was free to go, then asking for consent to search his car, taken over by a second officer, was a continuation of the stop and made the consent invalid. State v. Alvarez, 2010 Ore. App. LEXIS 293 (March 31, 2010): The check came back clear. Boyd walked back to defendant’s car, returned defendant’s documents, gave defendant a warning for not having license plates, told defendant that he was “free to leave,” and stepped back from the vehicle. At that point, the “forward-facing red and blue lights” on Boyd’s police car had been turned off and nothing “block[ed] [defendant’s] pathway or his ability to leave the scene.” “[A] few seconds” after telling defendant that he was free to go, Boyd asked defendant, in a “relaxed” manner, for his consent to search the car and if he “[had] anything with you that [Boyd] need[ed] to know about...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on April 03, 2010 (boomark / email).