Quote:
Originally Posted by molson
Dead people don't have fourth amendment rights, and officers probably consent to drug tests as a condition of their employment, but I honestly don't know if officers can perform a forced drug test on any criminal suspect, or any homicide suspect specifically (if it's not vehicular manslaughter). My two minute westlaw search came up short, (as did my search of white supremacist blogs where I get most of my information.) But in any event, the officers can always ask, and they should have here, so I was asking if they did, and if it was refused (which of course, would be a pretty good indicator that he was on something) I was also asking if we definitively know that no drug tests were performed, or if that's just an assumption based on the fact that there are no results released publicly. If Zimmerman was tested and tested positive for meth, cocaine, and heroin, I'm not sure they're allowed to release that publicly. But if the Sheriff's department came out and said they didn't try to test him, I just missed that.
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You can't force someone to consent. You can get a warrant though to test. When you have an unarmed teenager dead, it seems like a thorough investigation would be warranted.
You can ask someone if they would consent to it. It doesn't appear that was done either according to the police reports.