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TN: SI that occurred without arrest was invalid

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

The fact an arrest with probable cause could have occurred for a search incident is not determinative—it is whether it did occur. State v. Ingram, 2011 Tenn. LEXIS 4 (January 21, 2011): It is not sufficient that an arrest could have been made; the arrest must have been made roughly contemporaneously to the search in order for it to justify the search as incident to an arrest. In Crutcher, we “decline[d] to hold that a search may be upheld as a search incident to arrest merely because a lawful custodial arrest ‘could have’ been made,” 989 S.W.2d at 301 n.8, and emphasized that “we are not prepared to hold that the police may conduct a warrantless search merely because they have probable cause to arrest the suspect...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on January 26, 2011 (boomark / email).