Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in Utah
Campsite Search and Seizure
A group of friends and I were camping on Federal (BLM) land and were apporached by a ranger claiming that were were smoking marijuana. Which was false. He treatened to bring a search dog to the camp site and told us that if we did not give up the drugs and the dogs smelled the drigs the dogs would ''rip up our tents and scratch up or cars.'' We has nothing to hide so he proceded to call local Utah Police to bring a drug dog to search our campsite. After all of this nothing was found. My question is do Rangers have the right to search my tent or since it is my ''house'' for the weekend do they need a warrant to search it. Can he threaten us by saying the dog will do those things, when the dog did not? Finally, where could I find a current reference of my search and seizure rights?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Campsite Search and Seizure
The "ranger" has the power to investigate any crime which have been committed on public property. He does not have the right to search your car without probable cause, and most likely not your tent. If you allowed him to conduct a search you waived your right to privacy. Since he did not take any property, you did not have any violations of seizure laws.
Warrants are not necessarily required when there is probably cause on the part of the police to conduct a search, and where there are exigent circumstances. Your situation qualifies for exigent circumstances because by the time he got a warrant you could have broken camp and disappeared.
It does not appear that the police broke any laws although they may have "overeached" a bit. Let it go.
Re: Campsite Search and Seizure
Police officers frequently overstate the case. The drug dog might actually be badly behaved and he may have been compelled to warn you of that fact.
This is probably not a particularly attractive civil rights case.
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