« Ind. Courts - Judicial Nominating Commission to consider St. Joseph vacancy | Main | Courts - End of SCOTUS term is in sight »
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Ind. Decisions - Court of Appeals posts another opinion
As the ILB has noted before, when a case is posted to the Court of Appeals website after the regular posting, with no indication that it is in addition, and in fact is added to the middle of the current list, it is likely to be missed by those who read the Court's opinions every day. The ILB noticed late this afternoon that what had been a list of 22 new opinions today was suddenly 23, and by a process of comparing lists, discovered the new, for publication, decision in Jesse Peters v. State, a case where the issue was "Did the trial court abuse its discretion in admitting evidence seized as a result of a warrantless search of Peters’s car?." Judge Friedlander concludes:
For the same reasons set forth above, we conclude that the warrantless search of Peters’s car did not violate article 1, section 11. Captain Blount detected a strong odor of ether on Peters’s person and in his car, found a crank pipe on Peters, and observed other indicia of methamphetamine manufacturing in the wrecked vehicle, all of which alerted him to the possible presence of a roving methamphetamine lab in the vehicle. Knowing the dangers posed by ether and potential hazards presented by methamphetamine manufacture, combined with the fact that the vehicle had just been involved in an accident, Captain Blount’s concern for his safety and the safety of others was reasonable. These same circumstances also dictate the need for Captain Blount to search the vehicle in order to locate the source of the ether odor. Given that the vehicle had sustained serious front-end damage during the accident and that Peters had already been transported from the scene by an ambulance, there was no intrusion upon Peters’s ordinary activities. In sum, the warrantless search of Peters’s vehicle was reasonable under the circumstances. Finding no violation of the Fourth Amendment or article 1, section 11, we therefore conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence seized as a result warrantless search.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 10, 2008 03:49 PM
Posted to Ind. App.Ct. Decisions