Opinion ID: 2569354
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 62

Heading: Whether evidence obtained from the searches of the defendant's house, car, body, and telephone toll records should have been suppressed.

Text: Harlan asserts that the trial court should have suppressed certain evidence obtained through the search of his home, car, telephone records, and through nontestimonial samples of his blood, saliva, body hair, and pubic hair. Specifically, he claims that the search warrants and the order for nontestimonial samples were not supported by probable cause, and that the evidence seized was not within the scope of the search warrants. First, we conclude that the searches of the defendant's home and of his car were based on valid search warrants supported by probable cause, as required by the Fourth Amendment and article II, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution. The items that the police seized that were not within the scope of the warrants were legally seized under the plain-view seizure doctrine. These items were found while the police were conducting a legitimate search and their incriminating nature was immediately apparent. See Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 140, 110 S.Ct. 2301, 110 L.Ed.2d 112 (1990); People v. Najjar, 984 P.2d 592, 596-97 (Colo.1999). The search of the telephone records of Harlan's cellular phone, which appeared to have blood on it and was legally seized under the plain-view doctrine, was also based on a search warrant supported by probable cause. Second, the search of Harlan's body for nontestimonial evidence was supported by probable cause. Crim. P. 16(II)(a)(1) provides that, after judicial proceedings have been initiated, the court may require the defendant to give any nontestimonial identification as provided in Crim. P. 41.1(h)(2). When the trial court signed the order allowing the prosecution to seize samples of Harlan's blood, saliva, body hair, and pubic hair, there was probable cause to believe that Harlan had abducted, raped, and murdered Rhonda Maloney, as the affidavit attached to the prosecution's request revealed. Maloney's body had been found and an autopsy performed on it. Trace evidence from the defendant's house and car, as well as trace evidence found on the victim's body, demonstrated that the results of the nontestimonial identification procedures would be of material aid in determining whether the defendant committed the offense. See Crim. P. 41.1(c)(3). The seizure of these items satisfied constitutional limitations as well as the requirements of Crim. P. 16(II)(a)(1) and 41.1.