They Stole My Cabin!

[Ben]

So here's a question for our legal eagles:

The whole, "walking off with a cabin unnoticed" thing aside, what struck me as interesting was the need for the cops to get a search warrant to enter the cabin. Once it was found and identified, couldn't the actual owner just give permission? If it was a stolen car sitting in the thief's driveway, would they need a warrant to walk up to the car?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/04/10/washington-authorities-find-cabin-that-family-reported-missing/?intcmp=latestnews

[wmenorr67]

My thoughts being they are just CYA and any other incriminating evidence they may find will be admissible.

[K Frame]

I'm pretty sure that courts have ruled that even people inhabiting a property illegally have Constitutional protections against warrantless searches, even if the legal owner of the property gives permission.

A warrant is insurance against a search being tossed later.

[T.O.M.]

My thought in reading this is that it may not be possible to ascertain if the cabin on the suspect's property is the stolen cabin until they examine the building and look around inside.  That's where the warrant is going to be required.  You do not need a warrant to be anywhere a person can legally be, but as soon as the LEO needs to step onto the property beyond the curtilage, better have a warrant.

Ben, on the car issue, you have different rules for motor vehicles.  Since they are mobile, the warrant requirement does not always apply.  You still need probable cause, but since the car could be taken, the law does not require the warrant before the search.  This is not a hard and fast rule, and when i prosecuted, I encouraged officers to secure the vehicle and get the warrant first.  Made the cases better. 

[vaskidmark]

Presuming the cabin to be stolen property the police may sieze it, but a number of "closed container" cases coming out of the War on Some Drugs have established that they still cannot inspect it without a warrant unless the container is "abandoned".  There are folks who claim to own the cabin (container).  Those folks could give permission to enter and search the cabin (container), thus eliminating the need for a warrant.

Except -

There is apparently a presumption that the thief also used the cabin as an abode.  There are court cases - mostly coming out of defrauding an innkeeper (nonpayment of hotel bill) law - that allows the police to enter the room(s) based on the permission of the owner (innkeeper) to sieze any property found therein, but do not allow the search of any closed container without either the permission of the owner or a search warrant.

Suppose you are The Brain and you placed you Plans to Take Over the World in a briefcase that you then put in the trunk of  your car.  Suppose further that Pinky stole your car.  Suppose even further that the police caught Pinky driving your stolen car and that it still had the briefcase in the trunk.  Both the car and the briefcase are stolen property - even if Pinky did not know the briefcase was in the trunk when he stole the car.  The police may inventory the siiezed car without a warrant but not the contents of the briefcase.  Inventory both protects the police from a later claim that they improperly disposed of (lawyer-speak for "stole") something you claim (lawyer-speak for lied about) was in the car when they seized it, and protects against unreasonable search and seizure of your papers.

Now suppose that instead of the briefcase being in the trunk of the Brain's car it was in a cabinet of The Brain's travel trailer and that Pinky had stolen the travel trailer (and of course the tow vehicle) and lived in the travel trailer for a week before the police seized the travel trailer (the tow vehicle not being found).  Both The Brain and Pinky have protection from unreasonable search and seizure of their papers and possessions without a warrant.  They are just different protections for different things.

The vagaries of the 4th Amendment outlined by use of a cartoon.  I may have outdone myself.

stay safe.