Is this legal? Old COPS episode

[GhostRider66]

Okay so last night an old COPS episode comes on and it begins with a standard briefing at the beginning of the shift. They talk about bringing the SWAT team, several uniformed officers and plainclothes and how the search will proceed. They all begin to caravan to the target location and the senior person is talking about how they have to do this at this particular location (a local motel) every couple of months.

They arrive at the motel and there are a few sundry types in the parking lot. These people are immediately put on the ground by a few officers and the rest proceed inside. The motel is a two-story place with all of the rooms facing the interior hallways. The teams (they have a warrant they say) then proceed through the motel kicking doors in, rousting those inside, cuffing them and making them sit in the hallways while they proceed to search the rooms. Now the place is definitely seedy and they do wind up finding about four or five handguns (mostly cheapies - one was a .45 hi-point) and one shotgun and of course drugs.

My question is, how legal is this? Can you get a warrant to search a building, business or otherwise where the rooms are rented out to other people? Interesting part to me was some of the people being arrested were saying that some of the drugs found in the ceiling were not theirs. Judging by the motel, I could see how that could be possible.

 

[Biker]

Do you know where this happened? Not that I'm a lawyer, but I want to make sure that I never again visit that state (I've ridden through all but Florida, Maine and Alaska).
Biker

 

[cidirkona]

You've ridden through Hawii?!?!

They're still the HOTEL's rooms, aren't they? If the hotel gave them permission, it would fall into the 'understood privacy' deal, like how in some states, officers can't search backpacks or whatever... I'm not sure what the deal on that is, but I would go with "the hotel gave them permission."

-Colin

 

[GhostRider66]

Best I could tell, somewhere in California. I'm trying to look for references to the particular episode. I would think that if the hotel gave them permission, they wouldn't have mentioned having a warrant. Unless, of course, the warrant was obtained with the permission/testimony of the hotel owners/personnnel.

 

[1 old 0311]

A warrent is issued for a SPECIFIC location, ie room 117 etc. The police must show probable cause to a judge for that location. Expmple if a warrent is issued for your home than another would be needed for your place of business. Every lawyer in the city would want a part of this.

Kevin

 

[Pilgrim]

Sounds pretty out of line unless the search warrant specified every room that was to be searched.

Is it possible this was a residential motel hired by the state to serve as a halfway house for parolees? If is is the case, all that would be necessary to search the rooms would be a parole officer present granting the police authority to search for contraband.

Pilgrim

 

[Shield529]

IIRC it was Atlanta.
If I went in to the court to obtain a warrant for an entire motel, rooms and all I would be escorted to the nut house by the prosecutor and judge with wishes for a fast recovery.
There is not way on earth that you could satisfy the requirements for a warrant without knowing the names of every person renting rooms and PC to suspect they themselves were committing a crime. I cannot imagine how one would go about building a good enough case for a search warrant in the day or two someone is staying at a motel with the best CI'S and undercover officers out there. But even then every room?

 

[Sindawe]

I've never seen that episode

Perhaps the police in charge were planning to rely on the "Good Faith" exception to the rules and laws on searches?

 

[CZ 75 BD]

Fulton Co. Georgia Atlanta area

Sheriff's Dept. They sure went through the place, and even charged some with child endangerment. There were drugs and guns in the room with the toddler. It was a residential motel.

 

[Kamicosmos]

There was a similar situation done on an apartment complex near where I used to live. State highway patrol went in and arrested over 100 people, mostly under frauding Section 8 (I think) housing rules.

I am assuming that because those places are under some kind of state control (And fed?) in order to be Section 8, that they can get 'raided' or audited at any time.

Along with the sec 8 fraud arrests, there were lots of drugs, weapons, parole violations, and child endangerment. Not a nice part of town at all.

 

[WYO]

You need a warrant for every room to be searched, and the innkeeper cannot give consent to search a room while it's rented to a guest. However, in some locales, a real "playah" will rent a block of rooms for a business enterprise such as drugs or prostitution, and the warrant application may be less complicated than getting one for 100 individual rooms. Similarly, if the innkeeper is a part of the enterprise, police could try to sweep all unoccupied rooms into one warrant application. I don't know about the particular incident on TV, though.

 

[Erich]

If I went in to the court to obtain a warrant for an entire motel, rooms and all I would be escorted to the nut house by the prosecutor and judge with wishes for a fast recovery.

(Most amusing, Shield!)

As a prosecutor, I've helped LEOs write up their probable cause statements for warrants and presented them to judges. Obviously, what you can get a warrant for depends on the attitude of the judge (and is subject to review on down the line, but that review is pretty deferential). I think Shield is pretty right, though!

As a criminal defense lawyer, I've often heard members of the defense bar refer to Cops as "a defense lawyer's best friend." I don't catch the show often, but it amazes me what some of those LEOs will say and do on camera.

 

[Derek Zeanah]

I think you're missing the point:

• All of the people who suffered from this are poor.
• Those who got lucky (ie, those who got away without charges filed) don't have the resources (or likely, the knowledge) to initiate a lawsuit against the cops to try and get compensation for having their rights violated.
• Those who were busted will probably get a poor, overworked court-appointed lawyer, that's if they have the sense to ask for one. Odds are, he'll recommend a plea bargain rather than going to the effort to get the search ruled illegal.

Basically, the cops get their arrests, the prosecutors get their convictions (the pleas), the defense attys get a client quickly removed from their list that's already got way too many people on it, and no-one steps up to say "this is wrong."

So it goes on, and is counted as a success in the war-on-drugs/getting-guns-off-the-street.

 

[Erich]

And the Fed money flows . . . and continues bleeding out of our pockets.

 

[Chipperman]

... and we get an entertaining 1/2 hour of TV.

 

[GT]

If you suck on the teat then expect the gvt. to yank the bottle away from time to time.

These people aren't "poor" they live like this because of their life choices, children, do nothing, take drugs, steal things, etc.


Rule 1 seems to be don't live at the pleasure of the govt.
Rule 2 would be if you must break rule 1 then don't break the law.

G

 

[thebigc]

i saw that episode they were talking about getting a warrent for the whole building and they went in the parking lot cuffed 3 pepole standing outside ran in everyone out of there rooms and lined em up in the hall and searched all the rooms and came out with a few handguns and a shotgun in the ceiling if i remember right.

 

[Sindawe]

I don't catch the show often, but it amazes me what some of those LEOs will say and do on camera.

Thats for darn shure. I recall an old episode of COPS where the patrol officer is commenting on the complaints that some Hispanic folks have made about the police, his exact words were...

I'm not arresting them on the pretense that they are hispanic. I'm arresting them on the pretense that they are breaking the law.

But it sure can be an entertaining show now and again. I'll never forget the episode where two units are responding to a backup call, and the two units have a sudden "interaction" at a cross roads, ending up with both cars broken, blood everywhere and some great footage of Denver's finest in action.

 

[joab]

Sounds pretty out of line unless the search warrant specified every room that was to be searched.

One of the cops did say that they had a warrent to search the hotel. Seemed pretty farfetched to me

pepole standing outside ran in everyone out of there rooms and lined em up in the hall and searched all the rooms

The last place I was in a situation like that is very similar to the place that these people will soon be spending some time.

 

[BostonGeorge]

If you suck on the teat then expect the gvt. to yank the bottle away from time to time.

These people aren't "poor" they live like this because of their life choices, children, do nothing, take drugs, steal things, etc.


Rule 1 seems to be don't live at the pleasure of the govt.
Rule 2 would be if you must break rule 1 then don't break the law.

G

Wow, I actually feel like I lost brain cells having read that. How are they "sucking the teat" if living at a residential motel? Last time I checked Section 8 didn't cover that. Most people don't choose to grow up in bad environments with no money, no education, and surrounded by negativity. They are usually born into that situation. Not everyone gets the silver spoon.