SEARCHES AND SEIZURES - EFFECT OF COERCION - WAIVER OF CONSTITUTIONAL PRIVILEGE BY WIFE IN HUSBAND'S ABSENCE

Authors

Michigan Law Review, University of Michigan Law School

Abstract

The defendant and his son were shot as prowlers while they were taking a "short-cut" through the informant's barnyard. They managed to reach home, where after a physician's treatment they were placed under arrest and taken to jail on a charge of stealing the informant's chickens. Later some of the arresting officers returned to the defendant's home without a search warrant. Whether or not the wife's consent was secured is disputed, but a search was made of the defendant's henhouse, and thirty-one chickens were seized as stolen property. Before the commencement of the trial, a motion filed by the defendant to suppress the evidence obtained by the search was denied. Held, denial of the motion was error, for even assuming that consent of the defendant's wife was obtained, the circumstances were so tinged with official coercion that the wife could not waive her husband's constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. People v. Lind, 370 Ill. 131, 18 N. E. (2d) 189 (1938).

Recommended Citation

Michigan Law Review, SEARCHES AND SEIZURES - EFFECT OF COERCION - WAIVER OF CONSTITUTIONAL PRIVILEGE BY WIFE IN HUSBAND'S ABSENCE, 37 Mich. L. Rev. 1155 (1939).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol37/iss7/24