James Michael Flippo v. West Virginia (528 U.S. 11)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided October 18, 1999 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 528 U.S. 11 · 120 S. Ct. 7
- Decided
- October 18, 1999
- Term
- October Term 1999
- Vote
- 9–0
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. Petitioner’s motion to suppress evidence seized in a warrantless search of a “homicide crime scene” was denied on the ground that the police were entitled to make a thorough search of any crime scene and the objects found there. Because the rule applied directly conflicts with Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385 (1978), we reverse. One night in 1996, petitioner and his wife were vacationing at a cabin in a state park. After petitioner called 911 to report that they had been attacked, the police arrived to find petitioner waiting outside the cabin, with injuries to his head and legs. After questioning him, an officer entered the building and found the body of petitioner’s wife, with fatal head wounds. The officers closed off the area, took petitioner to the hospital, and searched the exterior and environs of the cabin for footprints or signs of forced entry. When a police photographer arrived at about 5:30 a.m., the officers reentered the building and proceeded to “process the crime scene.” Brief in Opposition 5. For over 16 hours, they took photographs, collected evidence, and searched through the contents of the cabin. According to the trial court, “[a]t the crime scene, the investigating officers found on a table in Cabin 13, among other things, a briefcase, which they, in the ordinary course of investigating a homicide, opened, wherein they found and seized…
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