State v. Surface

pro tempore

The state appeals the trial court’s pretrial order to suppress evidence of a methamphetamine lab found in a room that defendants had left locked when they turned their house over to house sitters. The evidence was seized pursuant to two search warrants. The affidavit for the first search warrant contained observations made by a deputy sheriff after one of the house sitters allowed her to enter the house. The trial court found that the document giving the house sitters authority over the premises was not intended to give them authority to consent to a search of the locked room. The…