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CA6: Defendant's jail strip search would have been valid, so dropping drugs was an abandonment

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Defendant dropped drugs in the jail before his strip search. The court considered the validity of the strip search first to see whether the abandonment was caused by an illegal act, and it concluded that the strip search would have been valid. United States v. Warfield, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 55, 2011 FED App. 0002N (6th Cir. January 3, 2011)*: Here, three facts justified the jail officers' reasonable suspicion that Warfield possessed drugs: (1) his prior drug conviction; (2) his refusal to submit to a search; and, most importantly, (3) the relayed information regarding Warfield's suspected possession of contraband, specifically through the alerting of the drug-detection dog. These considerations created reasonable suspicion that Warfield possessed drugs, and thus provided an adequate reason under Bell for the jail officers' strip-search of Warfield...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on January 06, 2011 (boomark / email).