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ND: Living with a probationer assumes the risk of a bedroom search; breaking into a safe was reasonable

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Under a probation search condition, officers could search a safe located in a bedroom she shared with her boyfriend. The officers could reasonably assume that the bedroom’s occupants shared the safe as well, and living with a probationer is, essentially, assumption of the risk of loss of some privacy rights in the home. Destruction of the safe to open it did not make it an unreasonable search. State v. Adams, 2010 ND 184, 2010 N.D. LEXIS 182 (September 21, 2010): [*P13] Here, prior to the search, the police officers did not ask to whom the safe belonged. The safe was located in the bedroom, which Adams does not dispute was a common area to which the probationer had access. Adams does, however, dispute that the probationer had access to the safe itself...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on September 25, 2010 (boomark / email).