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  1. #1
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    Feb 2014
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    Default 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?

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Intoxicated and Giving Consent to Search

    Quote Quoting rinel269
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    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.

  3. #3
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    Default 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.

  4. #4
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    Default 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.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: Intoxicated and Giving Consent to Search

    Quote Quoting rinel269
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    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
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    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

  6. #6
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    Feb 2014
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    Default 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.

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