Sheriff Shouldn't Have Searched Lawyer's Home & Office for Cocaine, But Can't Be Sued, 7th Cir. Says
An informant’s claim that a known thief and cocaine dealer told him he’d paid his unidentified female lawyer, who also happened to be a cocaine user, with two stolen laptop computers was likely insufficient probable cause to search the attorney’s home and office.
But even assuming there was no probable cause for the search, the sheriff had enough of a basis for conducting it to establish qualified immunity supporting a jury verdict in the sheriff’s favor in a subsequent civil rights suit filed by attorney Dodie Junkert, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held in an opinion (PDF) last week.
Junkert was the only woman lawyer practicing in rural DeWitt County, Ill., court records showed she was representing a known burglar with no legitimate income source and, when questioned, she admitted she had received the two laptops, reports the Wisconsin Law Journal.
So, although there was no reliable information situating drugs or the computers in her home or office, the appellate court held, “the affidavit does contain several indicia of probable cause, and it is not so deficient that any reasonably well-trained officer would have known that probable cause was lacking, requiring the second-guessing of the judge’s authorization.”
