Posted on 03/14/2020 9:03:23 AM PDT by wardaddy
On Feb. 11, 2019, undercover detectives removed the trash from outside a 57-year-old paralegal’s home in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in hopes of finding her DNA.
Police were led to Theresa Bentaas’ home by a new investigative technique that combines direct-to-consumer genetic testing and genealogical records. The detectives believed they were close to solving a crime that had haunted the city for 38 years: a newborn left to die in a frigid roadside ditch, tears frozen to his cheeks.
Once they’d taken the garbage from Bentaas’ home, the detectives pulled out beer cans, water bottles and cigarette butts, according to court documents. They sent the items to a state crime lab, where analysts extracted DNA that they said might belong to the baby’s mother.
Citing those results, one of the detectives got a search warrant to obtain a DNA sample directly from Bentaas. When he showed up at her home, Bentaas admitted to leaving the baby in the ditch in February 1981 after secretly giving birth, saying she’d been “young and stupid” and scared, according to an affidavit submitted by the detective.
A few days later, according to court documents, Bentaas’ DNA swab revealed her as the baby’s likely mother. Police arrested her for murder.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
This case does raise legal issues I suppose...but unless I’m mistaken no warranties needed to lift prints from an outdoor place so would DNA in her trash be different ...the girl was 18....my maternal grandma had 2 children by then in the 20s and 30s in piney woods east Mississippi ...to best of my knowledge she never killed any and she was without question finest truly strong woman I ever knew
Am not familiar with any states not observing this.
I believe the supreme court has ruled that trash put out for pickup is not subject to having to get a warrant.
Murder is forever.
"In a footnote placed after the word ''snoops,'' Justice White noted: ''Even the refuse of prominent Americans has not been invulnerable. In 1975, for example, a reporter for a weekly tabloid seized five bags of garbage from the sidewalk outside the home of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.'' The tabloid, which Justice White did not name, was The National Enquirer."
What goes in your trash can is legitimately no longer yours. Constructive possession has been voluntarily surrendered, otherwise trash pickers could be arrested for petty theft.
Indeed, no love for a child....
Regarding trash/DNA and searches, leaving trash outside ones curtilage is fair game for anyone to peruse.
Don’t place your trash past your property line/into a right of way.
As long as it is on your property, it isn’t abandoned even if placed out for pickup. If you pay for trash pickup, the trash is property in transfer and belongs to you or the trash service....unless placed in the public domain.
My trash guy complains that my can is too far from the roadside, but I place it just on my side of a survey marker, on my property, he has to enter my property to claim the trash. It works that way in Missouri anyways.
That would be my view as well
I doubt she does much time....been so long and she’ll plead all manner of hardship
Women simply get less time
That last sentence is a nod to your moniker
+1
Indeed as is first degree child molestation
If the garbage evidence was taken illegally then throw out the garbage evidence.
Just keep the DNA evidence that was obtained through the court order. The defense should be happy with that.
The defense doesn’t have a case. Once again the ACLU is on a murderer’s side—THE WRONG SIDE.
Interesting
Ahh yes. The “Garbage defense”.
Wonder if it matters whether garbage was at the curb vs. by side door.
https://www.dakotanewsnow.com/content/news/Bentaas-makes-first-court-appearance-507004201.html
Family who found the frozen infant 37 years ago continue to advocate for the baby.
“He has no family so we are there for him”
Wow
Oh sure. Just try to throw away your stash of PCBs, dioxins, ...
If the garbage evidence was taken illegally then throw out the garbage evidence.
___________
I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think it works that way. Anything that logically flows from the illegal evidence, including confessions also gets thrown out—’poison fruit from the poison tree’ I believe the concept is called.
But as others have pointed out, warrants aren’t usually required for trash.
I don’t think that happens until it gets placed OFF the property for pickup.
It’s still yours while it’s by the house.
Actually, in that case you would be charged with illegally disposing of those materials, not possession of.
The courts have long ruled that once you put out the trash, it is fair game for law enforcement. Some mafia types have had their trash taken and analyzed for years.
It may not be searching the trash that is being challenged but searching for her DNA based on how the information was obtained. Sort of a “Fruit of the poisoned tree.” defense.
Nope. Once you throw it away, your actions have declared you no longer have any interest in its fate.
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