What Happens If Police Go to Your House to Search for Drugs, but They Find Evidence of Other Crimes?
Pursuant to the Fourth Amendment, police cannot search your residence or other private property of yours unless there is a compelling reason to do so. In order to search your property legally, they must obtain a search warrant, and to do this, they must convince a judge that the search will yield specific items that constitute evidence of a specific crime. They must describe this evidence in the probable cause affidavit and explain why they think they will find it in your possession. One way of looking at this is that it is easy, and perhaps even legal, to keep controlled substances in your house as long as you do not give the police reason to believe that the controlled substances are there. When police execute a search warrant, they sometimes find evidence of other crimes, of which they had thus far not suspected the occupants of the residence. Sometimes a search of one person’s property leads to someone else getting criminal charges. This is a common scenario in drug conspiracy cases; the police might not have suspected that you were part of a drug trafficking network until they found communications with you on a device they searched after getting a warrant for someone else. If you are facing criminal charges after police executed a search warrant, but the charges are not for something mentioned in the warrant, contact a Florida drug offenses attorney.
Drug-Related Search Warrant for Florida Residence Leads to Charges of Felony Animal Cruelty
It was a summer day in Florida, and the temperature was 94 degrees. Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies executed a search warrant at a house in North Lauderdale, where they believed that they would find evidence of methamphetamine trafficking. They arrested Tjon Parks, 37, and Amanda Rogers, 36, on drug-related charges, but by the time Parks and Rogers got to the Broward County jail, they were also being accused of a crime that has nothing to do with drugs, namely cruelty to animals.
Parks, Rogers, and their 16-year-old son have six dogs; the BSO deputies expected to find dogs on the property, because animal control had visited the house previously. Previous reports about the family’s dogs did not warrant legal action, though. By the time of the search warrant this summer, though, the dogs were malnourished and showed signs of neglect. They were in kennels in the backyard, their food and water bowls empty, and the couple’s son told the deputies that the dogs spend most of their time in the yard and do not usually come into the house. News reports did not indicate what happened to the dogs after the deputies’ visit, but it stands to reason that they were removed from the home.
Contact FL Drug Defense Group About Drug Cases
A Central Florida criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are facing drug charges as a result of a search warrant. Contact FL Drug Defense Group in Orlando, Florida to discuss your case.
Source:
local10.com/news/local/2024/06/21/bso-swat-team-looking-for-drugs-finds-6-extremely-malnourished-dogs-2-arrested/
