COURT: SEARCH OF TENT FOR POT ILLEGAL

SAN FRANCISCO - A camper's tent may be his castle - even if he's an illegal
marijuana grower - and officers shouldn't enter without a warrant, says a
federal appeals court.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the drug and conspiracy
convictions Monday of a man arrested in 1997 by federal agents who had
found his name on a prescription bottle in a tent on government land in
southwest Idaho.

Rodrigo Sandoval, sentenced to more than nine years in federal prison,
claimed the search was illegal because agents lacked a warrant and were not
acting in an emergency. U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge upheld the search,
saying a tent on Bureau of Land Management land doesn't have the same
privacy protections as a home.

In a 3-0 ruling, the appeals court said the tent was a private area,
constitutionally protected from warrantless government searches.

The tent was closed on all four sides and located in an area of virtually
impenetrable vegetation, evidence that Sandoval had a reason to expect
privacy, said the opinion by Judge Michael Hawkins.

He noted that the court had previously upheld privacy claims by an occupant
of a tent on a public campground.

The legality of the search didn't depend on whether Sanchez had a right to
be on the land - an issue that was in dispute - or on whether he was
committing a crime, Hawkins said.

In a separate ruling, the court said the conspiracy convictions of
Sandoval, his brothers Alfredo and Gonzalo, and another man, Silvino
Campos, had to be overturned for another reason. Lodge wrongly allowed
prosecutors to introduce evidence of numerous marijuana sites in the
surrounding area, without showing that the four men knew of those
operations or conspired with the growers, the court said.

The court also overturned the convictions of two other men, Jose
Garcia-Garcia and Oscar Correa, because agents questioned them and obtained
confessions without first telling them they had the right to have a lawyer
present.

The defendants all came from a small town in Mexico. The rulings entitle
them to new trials.

The cases are U.S. vs. Rodrigo Sandoval, 98-30130, and U.S. vs. Alfredo
Sandoval, 98-30128.