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Consent to Search Given While Intoxicated

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  • 03-05-2014, 01:31 PM
    rinel269
    Consent to Search Given While Intoxicated
    My question involves criminal law for the state of: LA

    I have a question concerning someone giving consent to search a home. If the person was intoxicated when they gave LE consent to seach a home could that be used in court?
  • 03-05-2014, 01:45 PM
    Welfarelvr
    Re: Intoxicated and Giving Consent to Search
    Quote:

    Quoting rinel269
    View Post
    My question involves criminal law for the state of: LA

    I have a question concerning someone giving consent to search a home. If the person was intoxicated when they gave LE consent to seach a home could that be used in court?

    I believe consent must be freely and voluntarily given. There have been no cases I have seen where intoxication affected either of those. They factors tend to revolve around coercion and trickery by the police and not intoxication by the person giving consent.
  • 03-05-2014, 02:06 PM
    rinel269
    Re: Intoxicated and Giving Consent to Search
    Ok, I just thought that if the person was intoxicated they were in no mental state to actually know what they were doing when they gave consent. I may not have worded that right but you get where I am coming.
  • 03-05-2014, 02:09 PM
    flyingron
    Re: Intoxicated and Giving Consent to Search
    The law takes a dim view on people ducking their actions from self-induced intoxication. Now if they were medically comatose or mentally challenged so they couldn't make an informed decision, that would be a different story.
  • 03-05-2014, 02:28 PM
    Welfarelvr
    Re: Intoxicated and Giving Consent to Search
    Quote:

    Quoting rinel269
    View Post
    Ok, I just thought that if the person was intoxicated they were in no mental state to actually know what they were doing when they gave consent. I may not have worded that right but you get where I am coming.

    Consent can mean different things in different contexts. For sex, consent's meaning has changed a bit over time. For searches? I have not seen any cases that hold such.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote:

    Quoting flyingron
    View Post
    The law takes a dim view on people ducking their actions from self-induced intoxication. Now if they were medically comatose or mentally challenged so they couldn't make an informed decision, that would be a different story.

    While that seems reasonable, "informed" does not seem to be required. Some cases have used the phrase with the knowledge of right to refuse to make it voluntary, but that tended to be on a person "reasonably" misconstruing the situation based on an officer's misrepresentations.

    The original Supreme Court case giving some of the factors is:
    Bumper v. North Carolina (1969) 391 U.S. 543
  • 03-05-2014, 02:29 PM
    rinel269
    Re: Intoxicated and Giving Consent to Search
    Well the situation was the person was intoxicated and she told me that the police officers asked if they could search the house, and if they had to come back with a search warrant anything they found she would get charged with also.
  • 03-05-2014, 02:54 PM
    Welfarelvr
    Re: Intoxicated and Giving Consent to Search
    Quote:

    Quoting rinel269
    View Post
    Well the situation was the person was intoxicated and she told me that the police officers asked if they could search the house, and if they had to come back with a search warrant anything they found she would get charged with also.

    If the threat to charge her, based on the totality of the circumstances, coerced her into consenting, there could be a case. I think it unlikely that alone (even with the intoxication) would make any difference. If the police did NOT have probable cause to obtain a warrant when they made the threat to come back with one, that would be a problem (If they had probable cause the threat to get a warrant is meaningless.):
    Bumper v. North Carolina (1968) 391 U.S. 543
  • 03-05-2014, 03:06 PM
    rinel269
    Re: Intoxicated and Giving Consent to Search
    They had found a pipe(paraphanalia) in plain sight in the bedroom, then asked to search the rest of the home.
  • 03-05-2014, 03:25 PM
    Welfarelvr
    Re: Intoxicated and Giving Consent to Search
    Quote:

    Quoting rinel269
    View Post
    They had found a pipe(paraphanalia) in plain sight in the bedroom, then asked to search the rest of the home.

    Looks like a great chance the search was good.
  • 03-05-2014, 06:59 PM
    cdwjava
    Re: Intoxicated and Giving Consent to Search
    Quote:

    Quoting rinel269
    View Post
    My question involves criminal law for the state of: LA

    I have a question concerning someone giving consent to search a home. If the person was intoxicated when they gave LE consent to seach a home could that be used in court?

    Just how intoxicated were you? There's buzzed or impaired, and there's wasted. If you were incoherent and maybe even semi-conscious - and obviously so - then an argument might be made that consent was not freely given.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote:

    Quoting rinel269
    View Post
    They had found a pipe(paraphanalia) in plain sight in the bedroom, then asked to search the rest of the home.

    Yeah, there's probable cause for the search warrant if they had to get one.

    Your friend can argue coercion for the consent if she wants. But, the state might argue inevitable discovery, or, the officers might simply have factually stated what they would do if she did not give consent. But, if this is the only chance she has to beat the rap, then I guess she's got nothing to lose but money.
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