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Tom Callan and Nicole Gonzales reportingKSL received your e-mails asking why the police didn't immediately search all the units at the apartment complex where they eventually found Hser Nay Moo.
The Fourth Amendment requires law enforcement to have a warrant or permission to go in. Police can't storm in without probable cause.
Paul Murphy of the Utah Attorney General's Office said, "They wanted to search every single home in that apartment complex, but they didn't have any suspicion about one particular apartment."
Attorney Greg Skordas said, "The Fourth Amendment would never allow the police to just go door to door in an entire facility and kick every single door to find a missing child, as horrible as the consequences are."
He says the police cannot just make all the apartments in a building an automatic crime scene when a child is missing.
"Obviously by the time they got that consent it was too late for the child," he said.
He says if a search is illegal, the evidence could be tossed out.
E-mail: tcallan@ksl.com
E-mail: ngonzales @ksl.com
