After Judge Trish Rose took under advisement a defense motion to suppress one of two search warrants involving a storage shed north of Hutchinson back in February, she issued her ruling Wednesday according to Deputy District Attorney Tom Stanton.
Jason Casanova is accused of a numerous felony charges associated with an alleged meth lab which was discovered after a search warrant was served on a storage unit at 6210 North Tobacco Road back on August 31, of last year.
The judge ruled that there was probable cause for the search, however denied the states contention that they had standing for them to do the search without probable cause. She disagreed saying he had made a partial payment.
The defense contended that police didn’t have probable cause for one of two search warrants when they searched the storage unit and all evidence seized should be suppressed.
The first search warrant was the thought that he may have stashed the gun used to shoot Jennifer Heckel at that location. During the preliminary hearing for murder suspects Billy Craig Jr., and Charles Christopher Logsdon, it came to light that Casanova was told to get rid of the murder weapon. While searching for the gun, police then allegedly discovered the items to manufacture methamphetamine and the got a second search warrant on those items. Shannon Crane argued that the second search would be fruit of a poisonous tree, because they didn’t have probable cause for the first search warrant.
The state argues that the owners of the storage unit had taken it back a few days prior to those search warrants being served, in fact had changed the lock and also implied that the owners gave consent to search. Deputy District Attorney Tom Stanton had told the judge that because he no longer had control over the storage unit, he no longer had any expectation of privacy and that makes the search warrants valid. They never found any guns in that unit, only a silver gun case. But, the judge apparently didn’t agree with the state on that issue.
With the judges ruling, that means the case against Casanova can again be set for a jury trial.