Prosecution answers Durst motion to toss hotel room evidence

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By JANET McCONNAUGHEY

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Registering at a hotel under a false name and with phony IDs cost real estate heir Robert Durst his right to privacy there, say federal prosecutors in New Orleans.

Durst, an estranged member of the family that runs 1 World Trade Center in New York, is facing a murder trial in California in the death of his friend and onetime spokeswoman Susan Berman. He has waived extradition there.

But he's stuck in a Louisiana lockup awaiting a Jan. 11 trial on a federal charge that he illegally possessed a .38-caliber revolver after having a prior felony conviction.

The gun was found last March when Durst was detained in New Orleans. His attorneys will argue in federal court that the evidence seized in his New Orleans hotel room — where he had registered under the name Everette Ward — should be thrown out.

FULL story at link

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/99a1b4f15fff4cdc833d4a5b275ae1bc/prosecution-answers-durst-motion-toss-hotel-room-evidence

[madamvlb]

1. I wonder if he wasn't "estranged" from his wealthy family if he would be behind bars?

[bucolic_frolic]

2. It's the Same Durst That's the Worst

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Durst

Only dimly followed this in headlines over the years, it's all
the same guy ... a wife, a PR spokesman, a neighbor, patrons
of his health food store in 3 states, crossdressing, Long Island
murders, and multiple identities ... all this from the Wikipedia article.

I read about a case like his and I think he's not the only loose
cannon walking around.

[1monster]

3. So one gives up one's Contitutional rights under the Bill o Rights

for using a pseudonym?

I don't know anything about Durst (unless this is the guy who inadvertantly confessed to murder in a documentary... then I'm very vaugely aware of him), but I think the prosecution's defence of the ill-gotten evidence smells like three-day-old fish.

[24601]

4. The article says that his attorney alleges the FBI and state police searched his room before a

warrant was issued.

The courts have recognized over a dozen exceptions where searches do no require warrants. They include searches with consent, incident to arrest, and such routine things as when entering or leaving the country.

I don't require an exception for searching a room because the occupant may have registered in a false name. If a search is ruled illegal, the evidence is normally excluded from evidence.