Opinion ID: 2982356
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Search of Steiner’s Hotel Room

Text: Several Plymouth police officers then conducted a search of Steiner’s room at the Extended Stay America hotel and confiscated certain medications. When they entered the hotel room, they found it dark and empty. Steiner was not there. Upon entering the hotel room, Officer Grabowski saw a number of prescription bottles lined up on a table and, based on the way the bottles were lined up, he concluded those bottles contained daily medications. Officer Grabowski decided not to confiscate the bottles on the table and to leave them behind for Steiner. However, Officer Grabowski did not know how long the pills in the bottles would last. Officer Grabowski decided to confiscate two sealed grayish-white mailing packages from the hotel room, which sounded like they contained pills. The officers did not open the sealed packages. -5- Case No. 13-1574, Regets v. City of Plymouth Officer Grabowski gave Officer Cox Steiner’s telephone number and Officer Cox called Steiner after the officers finished their search. Steiner told Officer Cox that the medications they had taken from his hotel room were for his bipolar condition, memory loss, his heart, and his cholesterol. Steiner advised Officer Cox that the medications were strong and that if he were to take an overdose of them, he believed he would die. Steiner told Officer Cox that while he talked about suicide he denied that Regets had ever helped him plan to commit suicide. When Officer Cox asked Steiner how he was feeling at that time and if he had any intention of harming himself, Steiner replied that he was feeling good and was not going to attempt suicide. Officer Cox asked Steiner about the packages that the officers had confiscated from his hotel room. Steiner advised Officer Cox that Regets had delivered those packages to him a day or two before the search and that if he had really intended to kill himself, he would have taken the pills the day that Regets delivered them. Officer Cox asked Steiner if he had sufficient medications without the two packages of medications that the officers had confiscated that day. Steiner told Officer Cox that he would be fine over the weekend and into the week when he could go to the pharmacy and get another prescription for those medications. Officer Cox testified that he pressed Steiner on this issue and that Steiner responded again that he would be fine without the medication that the officers had confiscated.