United States of America, -Appellee v. Larry Souza

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that police are under no duty to discourage citizens from conducting searches of their own volition
• concluding that the inevitable discovery doctrine applied because the officers took steps to prepare a warrant prior to the search, the officers had probable cause to believe the package contained contraband, a narcotics dog alerted to the container, and a warrant ultimately was issued
• noting that the investigating agent both secured the evidence and arranged for his office' to prepare an affidavit form that he would later complete
• applying the exception after concluding that “but for [one agent] opening the package, [a different agent] would have obtained a warrant and the evidence would have been discovered”
• treating probability as key issue in determining applicability of inevitable discovery exception and characterizing probability of discovery as high when police had already secured item to be searched, guaranteeing access until warrant issued
• “The police are under no duty to discourage private citizens from conducting searches of their own volition.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).