NCJ Number
175468
Journal
Crime to Court (November 1998) Volume: Issue: Dated: Pages: 1-12
Date Published
1998
Length
12 pages
Annotation
In the case of United States v. Guapi, the trial judge was faced with the question of whether failure of police to inform the subject of his right to refuse consent rendered the consent search of his luggage unlawful.
Abstract
The case involved the Mobile, Alabama, Police Department and a Greyhound bus en route from Houston to Miami that made a scheduled stop in Mobile. The bus driver informed all passengers that they would be required to temporarily exit the bus at the Mobile terminal. Before passengers could depart, two members of the Mobile Police Department's Drug Interdiction Unit, one in full uniform and one in plain clothes, boarded the bus to inspect the cargo for illegal contraband. The uniformed police officer did not inform passengers that they could refuse to consent to the search or that they could simply leave the bus with their luggage. One of the passengers had cocaine in his bag and was placed under arrest. Legal analysis of the case concludes that a reasonable person in the defendant's position would not have felt free to disregard the police officer's request to search without some positive indication consent could have been refused and that the defendant had already been unconstitutionally seized before cocaine was found in his bag.