Expert: Robin Sexton - 6/14/2009

Question
at a friends house whose on probation is it legal for a officer to take duffel bag in room shut the door and go thru duffle bag with no other officers around even if duffle bag belongs to person thats not on probation and is it legal for male officer to pat down female during search with no females around

Answer
Anthony,

The question you pose is, "is it legal"  The answer is yes but i don't really think that is what you mean.  The question should be is it proper.  That unfortunately is a maybe.  It is certainly not wise to search anything with out a witness either another officer or someone else. Is it done, yes.  An officer can probably do this 100 times with no problem but it only takes one time to cause an officer a great deal of problems.  Yes it is legal but not good procedure.  The search of the opposite sex is always awkward.  All agencies have policies regarding searching.  Unless there is exigent circumstance it should only be a pat search not into the clothing.  Yes that should be witnesses also.  However sometimes it can't be.  Again legal but not necessarily good procedure.

Hope this helps

robin