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MA: Police misconduct was "thuggish" but did not lead to issuance of the search warrant here

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

The officers unlawfully entered defendant's property and stayed there seven hours before the search warrant arrived. Removing anything from the application for the warrant that came from the illegal entry left enough for the warrant to issue. The first officer's outlandish conduct in the illegal entry did not taint the warrant. Commonwealth v. Webster, 2009 Mass. App. LEXIS 1164 (September 25, 2009). An interesting view: The defendant does not claim that the affidavit had an insufficient independent basis to support the search warrant. Instead, he contends that the fruits of the search should be suppressed because of egregious police misconduct. The misconduct consisted of illegally entering the apartment and staying there for approximately seven hours while waiting for the warrant, all the while restraining the occupants from movement and from answering the telephone...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on September 28, 2009 (boomark / email).