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Name: People v. Smith
Case #: C037999
Opinion Date: 01/30/2002
Court: CA Court of Appeal
District 3 DCA
Citation: 95 Cal.App.4th 912
Summary

The trial court did not err when it denied appellant’s motion to suppress, where the search was pursuant to a valid probation condition, and appellant shared a bedroom with the probationer. According to the searching officer, appellant gave permission to officers to go into her purse to retrieve a key to a safein the bedroom, in which the probationer kept a gun. After retrieving the key, the officer put the purse on a bed, and a drug-sniffing dog alerted to it. Narcotics were retrieved from the purse. In her suppression motion, appellant argued that the purse was a distinctly “female” item, obviously not belonging to the probationer; and that a search warrant was therefore required to search it. The appellate court disagreed, finding that the fact that since the key to the safe shared by both was in the purse, the purse was not off-limits.