My question involves criminal law for the state of: iowa
3 nights ago i was sitting at my house with my roommate when i receive a call from a good friend who is on supervised probation. he tells me that his probation officer showed up at his PO house (his sisters) and he wasnt there. so the PO was now on his way to my house because his sister informed the PO thats where he might be because he spends alot of time here.
now the problem is i have a probation officer on my front porch and my friend is not at my house (but when he called he said he would be there as fast as he could) so i now have to stall a very upset PO because i cant tell him where my friend is, because i havent seen him since earlier in the day.
after 3-4 minutes of me holding the PO on the front porch i get a call from my friend who says hes in my bathroom. when the PO hears this he grabs the door handle to my front door and just walks in asking where the bathroom is at. my room mate is sitting on the couch during all this.
after my friend is located by the PO the PO claims to smell burnt marijuana in the house. as me and my roommate dont want our house torn to shreds in a drug raid style search we give him a small bag of pot (~2 grams) and a pipe. after this they start searching my room and my room mates room for anything else. at this time a second officer was called. the town DARE officer.
the whole time our house is being searched by the DARE officer my friend on probation is in the bathroom trying to get a urine sample for the officer but is feeling a bit shy... so me and my friend have to sit in the living room with the DARE officer of our town until a urine sample is given (~30 to 45 minutes)
after all is said and done me and my room mate are being taken to jail for possession of marijuana and paraphernalia.
now there are just too many things in this story that dont seem quite constitutional to me...
(1) i know that my friend being on supervised probation means that his residence can be searched at any time, BUT, my house is not his residence, thats his sisters.
(2) once the PO heard me say he was in the bathroom he quickly grabbed the door handle and let himself in and asked me where the bathroom was. doesnt he need my permission to enter my house?
(3)my room mate addmitted to all the marijuana and the pipe being his (they were) and yet i got the exact same charges as him. if they only find one pipe shouldnt they only be able to get one person with paraphernalia?
all this seems just a little bit unfair to me so any help you can give would be more than appreciated.
oh, and to top it off, my friend on probation received almost no punishment. he will be getting more frequent house checks and urine tests. after he was out passed curfew, blew .087, and his urine was dirty for THC.
now come on... really?
p.s. sorry for the long post and i wasn't sure whether to put this in probation or search and seizure as it kind of applies to both.

