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VA: Defendant did not abandon car just because he ran off after being confronted by an officer after he got out of it

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Defendant got of out his car in an apartment building parking lot. He was encountered by the officer who asked him questions. The officer said that he noticed a bulge in defendant’s waistband, and he was going to pat defendant down. Defendant then ran away and the officer could not catch him. The officer came back and looked in the car, and he noticed the console was not sitting right, and it likely was a storage place for drugs. He asked around if anybody knew whose car this was, and nobody knew. He searched the car. The trial court held that the car was abandoned, but it wasn’t. Watts v. Commonwealth, 2010 Va. App. LEXIS 426 (November 2, 2010): Here, appellant neither denied ownership of the car nor relinquished physical control of it in the context of this case, and the additional circumstances also do not support a finding of abandonment...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on November 05, 2010 (boomark / email).