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The Illustrated Guide to Law
A free resource, teaching how the law works… and how it doesn't!
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital!
For snark value, I’d love to see the defendant claim a privacy right under Grizwald v. Conneticut. After all, the sounds listed are consistent with bedroom activities.
You just made me spew coffee all over my monitor. I hope you’re satisfied.
Sweet! Now we can talk about malicious damage to property!
Well, in all seriousness, when I read the strip, I thought the cop was going to barge in on a couple as well.
Who were going at it during a raid? Pretty risky (or risqué).
One clarifying question, wouldn’t opening the bag be considered a new invasion of privacy, requiring a warrant or a new exception for it? I am not a lawyer, but is seems to me that once the suspect was caught there was no longer an emergency. And while the police could see the bag, they certainly couldn’t see (or feel, smell, hear) its contents. My understanding is that so long as the man didn’t claim it wasn’t his bag, or consent to it being search, the police would need a warrant to look inside. What am I missing here?
No, at this point, as Pi said, it’s incident to the arrest. The man was seen with the bag earlier, and was pretty much fair game in anybody’s book. I don’t think even DeltaC would argue on this one unless there were more extenuating circumstances.
Not so clear. He has the right to search the perp for weapons and other dangers. He can’t search the perp for mere evidence [unless it is destroyable or such, which it isn’t here]. Nor is there a danger of it driving off. The backpack could wait, and thus needed a warrant.
The restrictions you’re describing seem to be related to frisks/pat-downs; we’re at searches incident to arrest (see https://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1975). There’s very definitely probable cause to make an arrest (see: motorcycle chase, gun, etc.), so having made that arrest, the police can search his entire person or anything within his reach for weapons and evidence.
I would say that you are missing the fact the guy was wearing the bag visibly while they chased him. Not just the contents, but the bag itself was evidence.