USA - SWIM's dorm got raided for marijuana

[Stuck]

SWIM left his dorm and locked it and his friend was still inside. He left to go drink on another floor with some friends. While he was gone, his hall director claimed she smelled marijuana in his room and called the police. The cops showed up and knocked on the door. SWIM's friend opened the door and the cops PUSHED him aside claiming that they smelled marijuana and promptly began searching the room. The cops found an 1/8th of marijuana, 2 grinders, 2 pipes, confiscated it and wrote up a ticket and a court date for SWIM when he eventually returned to his room. SWIM's friend had a word with the hall's director and explained to her that everyone has the right to privacy in their living space and personal effects. The hall director replied and said that the University of ****** owned all halls and living space and can allow the police to search whatever room they want. She said she had smelled marijuana on the floor and SWIM's friend replied, suggesting that aroma could have come from any room on the floor, not that room alone. How is that probable cause for that room alone? They DID NOT have a warrant.

Did this not violate SWIM's rights? That he was not present when the cops came and the fact that they PUSHED swim's friend out of the way claiming they smelled marijuana. Once again the door was locked.

[Kodi]

No, welcome to college dorms. When you sign your housing contract you consent to them searching your room whenever they want.

Suggestion: When people tell you to sign something read it first.

[trptamene]

^^This is total BS, and I find it down right disgusting. W/O probable cause and w/o a proper search warrant and with a lawyer worth anything one should be able to get this dropped. You don't give up your 4th amendment rights by living on a campus. You pay board and this is your private space.

Were this officers from the city or were they campus officers (campus officers are usually PO's officers of the city and go through the same academy and have the same powers), but I am simply curious?

Sorry to hear about swiy's problems...swim has had similar experience (although it ended in an arrest), so he can empathize. Good luck and ask for a trial.

EDIT:

Just read above posters reply. If swiy did sign something and signed away his 4th amendment rights, then they have no case; but this is not the case for all University's and certainly was not the case for swims as a search warrant was issued for him before the search took place (although this was issued by the University, it was still issued).

[Shampoo]

Each campus has a different policy, though as trptamene noted, many do not have a policy allowing search & seizure without warrant. A neighbor of mine in my old dorm room was raided without a warrant and the ounce of mushrooms and gram of LSD he had were written up on charges, and subsequently dropped due to illegal search & seizure practice. A month later, a search warrant was approved for his dorm room due to information regarding a continued practice, as well as MDMA distribution (missed that the first time around....). They broke down the door while the whole building was sleeping, brought in 2 dogs, and a bakers dozen officers to drag the kid out to their patty-wagon. It turned out this was part of multiple busts in an attempt to clean sweep what is needless to say, a relatively psychoactive campus.

[thenightwatch]

When I lived in the dorms, our dorm was set up with three rooms... one central living/community room, and then a bedroom on either side of that room, each housing two people.

The university/law was allowed to search the main room whenever they wanted, but in order to search the bedrooms probable cause/a warrant was needed. This saved SWIM's ass several times. =)

[trptamene]

Originally Posted by Shampoo

Each campus has a different policy, though as trptamene noted, many do not have a policy allowing search & seizure without warrant. A neighbor of mine in my old dorm room was raided without a warrant and the ounce of mushrooms and gram of LSD he had were written up on charges, and subsequently dropped due to illegal search & seizure practice. A month later, a search warrant was approved for his dorm room due to information regarding a continued practice, as well as MDMA distribution (missed that the first time around....). They broke down the door while the whole building was sleeping, brought in 2 dogs, and a bakers dozen officers to drag the kid out to their patty-wagon. It turned out this was part of multiple busts in an attempt to clean sweep what is needless to say, a relatively psychoactive campus.

A GRAM?!?! What's that like 10,000 doses. Man I bet they were pissed when he walked.

[Stuck]

SWIM's friend didn't get a good look at the patrol car, but they were most likely campus officers. Enraged, he was planning to go slash their tires while they were inside, in fear that his friend may have ended up in jail, but they came out at the last second.

SWIM will have to take another look at the housing contract but he is very upset.

[trptamene]

Originally Posted by Stuck

SWIM's friend didn't get a good look at the patrol car, but they were most likely campus officers. Enraged, he was planning to go slash their tires while they were inside, in fear that his friend may have ended up in jail, but they came out at the last second.

SWIM will have to take another look at the housing contract but he is very upset.

swiy should stay level headed, and not do anything irrational. While there is a possibility of getting the charges dropped even depending on the contract, it doesn't seem like he may face any problems with the university. He should try to keep it that way...vandalizing school property is sure to give him troubles w/ the University. Even if one faces charges in the legal system this is likely not to cause him troubles in the future and a conviction (or similar) could likely be sealed and the term "slap on the wrist" comes to mind if this was his first (or maybe even 2nd) offense.

Being suspended or expelled from school may cause more problems than the pot.

At least sleep on it...

Reputation Comments on this post:

Appreciate your posts in this thread.

[Kodi]

I do still say that my school had the worst dorms ever, one time swim was waiting for the elevator, and an RA claimed to smell pot on the floor, and since swim was in the hall waiting for the lift, the RA made swim take her to his room and wait there for the campus police to come search.

Ill make the policy at my school more clear, the campus police are not allowed to make you open anything locked or completely sealed shut without just cause. But if you have a safe or something they can hold you until the city PD comes and forces you to open it.

And apparently, even having a cartoon picture of a joint telling kids not to smoke cigs is probable cause enough.

[Shampoo]

Originally Posted by trptamene

A GRAM?!?! What's that like 10,000 doses. Man I bet they were pissed when he walked.

The looks on their faces were beyond priceless...
the look on mine?

[Stuck]

Originally Posted by Kodi

I do still say that my school had the worst dorms ever, one time swim was waiting for the elevator, and an RA claimed to smell pot on the floor, and since swim was in the hall waiting for the lift, the RA made swim take her to his room and wait there for the campus police to come search.

Ill make the policy at my school more clear, the campus police are not allowed to make you open anything locked or completely sealed shut without just cause. But if you have a safe or something they can hold you until the city PD comes and forces you to open it.

And apparently, even having a cartoon picture of a joint telling kids not to smoke cigs is probable cause enough.

SWIM did have a lock box with all his other stuff. The cops made him open it.

[Senor Gribson]

wow. here in canada, res security is more likely to be upset by noise violations than drug violations. even if someon gets caught with illegal drugs, the punishment is exactly the same as it is for drinking underage; a warning first, then increasing fines for subsequent offences.

[Evil GIR]

Swim got kicked out of his student house because some stupid girl told the landlord we had drugs, which someone left some weed on the kitchen table.

Anyway I was away for the weekend and got a phone call saying we where all being kicked out. So i storm of to the university because the housing is all aranged by them and basicaly they didnt care about the drugs. They thought the landlord over reacted and acted illigaly.

So the uni just arranged a new house for us all.

[zera]

Talk to a lawyer. A good one, not a public defender or anything. Just because you sign a contract doesn't mean you can sign your Constitutional rights away. For example even if I signed a contract that said I would be your slave for the rest of my life, doesn't mean its valid (violates the 13th amendment).

Here's what I found regarding search and seizure in dorms:

http://fordtheriver.blogspot.com/200...t-in-dorm.html

This one is particularly relevant to you:

Commonwealth v. Neilson, 1996
1. Even if you waive your constitutional rights to the University that does not mean you wave your rights in respect to a police search.
2. Plain view doesn't count if the Officers don't have a legal authority to be there in the first place. Fruit of the poisoned tree.

Your hall director clearly doesn't understand the law. If you read through the case law RAs or university officials have the right to inspect your room for routine things like smoke detectors working or whatever, and if they happen to stumble on drugs than they can submit that as evidence. HOWEVER as private individuals they have no right to search your room for drugs, and if they advise police as to the presence of drugs then they do so as private individuals and there word has no more special evidentiary power to allow police to conduct a search than any other private individual.

Therefore it seems to me that what your case comes down to is if the odor of marijuana is enough to justify a home search. Assuming that its not and your roommate didn't agree to the search, this sounds like evidence that can be suppressed. In this case it depends on your state, I know for example Utah says the smell is insufficient to allow a warantless search of your home.

But even if your state supreme court does allow it the officer still has to be able to prove that he was able to localize it to your dorm room and not any other dorm room. If he gets cross-examined in court about his training on this matter, my guess is he will get destroyed by a competent attorney. And if they try t introduce the RA's testimony of the smell into their probable cause you absolutely know she has no training in localizing the smell so you can throw the whole thing as well as any searches that led to as "fruit of the poisoned tree."

Bottom line: Get a good lawyer, you have a good chance of beating this.


In the future I suggest to any swims out there who are going to smoke marijuana in their dorm room two things:
1. Some sort of locked box or safe. They can't open this unless they get a warrant.
2. A Febreeze machine. Combined with opening the window and a towel under the door this thing could mask the smell of rotting corpses.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Great post man, truly!

[Bikelbees]

This looks useful Zera although as you say as specialist lawyer will need to get to grips with this case law before we can say this action was in breach of constitional rights. Could posters focus on this rights issue now please as this seems the best approach on offer here?

[Hyperspaceblastoff]

SWIM was kicked out of his dorms b/c he had the same problem
SWIM wasnt in the room when it smelled like pot but in the common room
when the cops came to the door SWIM was seen in the common room and was forced to sit there while they opened the door to his dorm on their own and proceeded to search both sides, he was promtply arrested for having a folding blade longer than 2 inches and was kicked out of the dorms and given a misdemeanor.
i h8 colleges, they dont take into account how smart u are or how harmless u are just the fact that u have something that 2 other ppl look dangerous

[Ekoe15]

Swim is halfway through his second and final year of living in a dorm, so he has mucho experience with smoking (and a fair amount of dealing) and having no problems whatsoever.

Aside from knowing who you're smoking with on a pretty intimate basis and how they'll handle the experience, some tips on scent concealment:

1. Smoke in a bathroom with the shower running on fully hot. Smoke particles bind to steam in the air and can quickly be sucked out a vent or will simply linger in a confined space much longer, so the more of it, the better while smoking.

2. Masking the smell of exhaled fumes can be accomplished by building a nifty little device called a tubular. Take a plastic soda bottle & cut the bottom end off; stuff the inside with 5-6 dryer sheets, and then again angle towards a running shower. Exhaling through this will not really affect the potency, but hugely alters its herbal aroma.

3. It sucks, but clothes hold onto the smell of weed on a person more than even cannabi breath. Swim rarely smokes in the dorm wearing anything more than nylon shorts and socks (put the clothes on once done); this doubles for not getting soaked while standing next to a shower for twenty minutes with five people.

4. Duct tape has relatively thin pores, and as such can effectively be used to hot box or completely seal off a room by taping the edges of a door (if you plan on smoking for a really, really long time).

5. Invest in some type of an air purifier. Swim finds his ionic breeze works great.

6. Finally, what swim uses to smoke plays an enormous role in the amount of combustibles in the air. Packed cigs are horrible, whereas a nice bubbler gives off relatively little excess smoke.

Happy Smoking

[Shampoo]

Originally Posted by Ekoe15

6. Finally, what swim uses to smoke plays an enormous role in the amount of combustibles in the air. Packed cigs are horrible, whereas a nice bubbler gives off relatively little excess smoke.

Great point! I have seen far too many dorm doors and apartments get kicked in as the result of a fat blunt or joint boxing the room with unnecessary smoke. If planning on living in one of these situations for an extended period of time, it would be a wise and fruitful investment to grab a vaporizer, or even make one. Any device that continues to smoke when inhalation is not an option (in between hits, breathing or passing) is an immediate risk and should be avoided.

[chemlove]

Its a fine line. Yes its your living space, but on the other hand if the school / university had you sign a paper giving consent of searches then you don't have much ground to stand on. I believe that in the future it would be nice if the gov. would stand up for us and write laws making a dorm a home w/ the same rights as a private residence, but i also believe this will never happen