Well, the short answer is: all of it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Here is why: a private search is when a person searches or seizes something and there’s no government involvement.\u00a0 Now, the general rule is that if there is no government involvement, you can use any evidence that they obtained.\u00a0 Period, end of story.\u00a0 Even if what they did would have been completely prohibited if<\/em> you had done it<\/em>, you can still use it.<\/p>\n Now, what does it mean for a private person to be converted into a government agent?\u00a0 In that case, we are looking for things like this: the officer encouraged the person to do it, they directed or ordered them to do it, or they participated in the search.\u00a0 When you have those things in play, you have just made that private person into a government agent, and now everybody has to play by the Fourth Amendment rules.<\/p>\n But the reverse side of that coin is also true.\u00a0 If the private person is not involved with law enforcement, and they’re not being encouraged, directed, or ordered, and law enforcement officers are not participating in it, you can use any evidence that they bring you, even if it would have offended the Fourth Amendment.<\/p>\n Let me give you a couple of examples.\u00a0 Casino security personnel detain somebody because he was counting cards, and that is against house rules.\u00a0 So they bring the person back to the casino security office, they open up this guy’s backpack<\/a> and they find drugs. \u00a0Now, they were not going to arrest this person, they were just going to trespass<\/a> him.\u00a0 So what we have here is a detention by a private security officer.\u00a0 Now they call the police.\u00a0 The officers show up, and see the drugs that were obtained from the backpack.\u00a0 The question is, can the officers use those drugs as evidence in a case? \u00a0Absolutely, \u201cyes!\u201d\u00a0 No problem, because even if the officer may not have been able to do the exact same thing if he or she had been on the scene, it didn’t happen with police involvement.<\/p>\n We have another case, where a FedEx employee was really on the hunt for drugs being concealed in FedEx shipping packages.\u00a0 He apparently maybe even violated some FedEx rules by searching boxes that he thought contained contraband. \u00a0And, in fact, he was behind eight cases for the DEA; he was called as a witness for eight cases!\u00a0 The defendant finally said, \u201cHey, look, you have an agent on your hands here.\u00a0 The DA knows what this guy is doing!\u201d<\/p>\n Does that defendant have a point?\u00a0 Is that FedEx employee a government agent?\u00a0 Absolutely not!\u00a0 Whatever he’s doing, whatever his motivation is; as long as the DA didn’t encourage him to keep doing it, order him to do it, or participate in the search, we are good to go.\u00a0 So that’s what’s going on here.\u00a0 We do not care how offensive the search or seizure might have been.\u00a0 That\u2019s not part of the court\u2019s analysis.<\/p>\n Certainly, though, you’re going to want to weigh other things in, as far as your case goes.\u00a0 If<\/p>\n a methamphetamine addict comes to you and says, \u201cI was in my dealer\u2019s home and I was snooping around and looking for drugs, but I found child porn,\u201d and gives it to you, can you use it?\u00a0 The answer is, absolutely!\u00a0 But you’re going to want to talk to your prosecutor and you’ll probably want to build up a better case and maybe even do some undercover surveillance and so forth.\u00a0 You may not want to depend on that evidence alone.<\/p>\n Bottom line: You may use any evidence that was obtained in a private search as long as there was no government involvement.<\/strong><\/p>\nWhen does a private person become a government agent?<\/h2>\n
Can you use drugs found by casino security?<\/h2>\n
Should you build a case on a private search alone?<\/h2>\n
Related from Blue to Gold<\/h2>\n