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Officer properly posed questions to the passenger to dispell his suspicions which led to valid consent

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Questions to the passenger were justified by the officer's suspicions. State v. Funderburg, 2008 NMSC 26, 2008 N.M. LEXIS 282 (April 15, 2008): [*31] ... As we have made clear, after finding drugs on the passenger, Officer Minter did not immediately turn his attention to Defendant and begin interrogating him as a suspect, as in Patterson or Williamson, about drugs on his person. He never asked for consent to search Defendant personally, and did not do so until much later in the investigation after his arrest. If the officer had focused prematurely on Defendant as a suspect, then our inquiry today would be different. However, Officer Minter, suspecting that other evidence of the passenger's criminal act could be found in the car, asked Defendant a single question--whether there was anything in the car he needed to know about--before requesting Defendant's consent to search the car...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on May 15, 2008 (boomark / email).