PA. SUPERIOR COURT Ruling: Search order was legal

Weapons were found by police after the man said he had no more guns.
HARRISBURG (AP) -- Judges can order warrantless searches to collect guns in domestic-violence cases, a state appeals court ruled in a decision that legal experts said significantly expands the breadth of a state law.
A Superior Court panel ruled 2-1 last week that a Montgomery County judge had the authority to order deputies to search a man's home for guns. The judge also ordered warrantless searches of a vehicle and a hunting cabin in the Poconos that belonged to the man's father.
Beth Ann Kelly, of Gilbertsville, sought a protection-from-abuse order against James C. Mueller Jr. in September 2003, shortly after their relationship ended. She claimed physical and verbal abuse, including an episode in which he allegedly pointed his father's handgun at her head and threatened to kill her.
Mueller, who lived with his parents in Zieglersville, was ordered to turn over all weapons, but when deputies went to the house he signed a document saying there were none.
Second search ordered
Kelly insisted he was lying and the judge issued a second order directing that the home, vehicles and cabin of James C. Mueller Sr. be searched. The judge also authorized the use of "whatever force necessary" to seize any weapons found there.
Several guns were found in the searches, though it was not clear how many or where they were found. The son is seeking return of his weapons and the father wants a handgun back.
The Protection From Abuse Act's authority to force defendants to relinquish weapons gives judges the power to order such searches, Senior Judge Patrick R. Tamilia said in the majority opinion.
"We believe the facts warranted a finding by the trial judge that [Kelly] was in serious danger due to threats by [James Mueller Jr.] to use one of several weapons which could result in [her] death or serious injury," Tamilia wrote.
Searching the father's property also was permissible, the court ruled.
"If a court cannot reach weapons located wherever an abuser resides, it nullifies the preventive thrust of the most critical sections of the [PFA] Act, that is, to disarm the abuser," he wrote. The case was sent back to Montgomery County for a judge there to rule on whether the father's guns should be returned.
Dissenting judge
Senior Judge Justin M. Johnson dissented, saying there was no authority for searches in the PFA law and calling the action "far beyond what the Legislature established or intended."
The Muellers' lawyer, Eric J. Cox of Plymouth Meeting, said the case was the only example he could find of a Pennsylvania judge ordering a warrantless search to enforce a PFA order.
"It just seemed to me to be the kind of decision where the court is legislating for the Legislature. We see a lot of that," Cox said.
Larry Frankel, legislative director for the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the only other legal warrantless searches of which he was aware take place during the arrest of a suspect.
"The court can certainly order that weapons be turned in, but to actually go and authorize a search and seizure without a warrant of probable cause being issued seems to me a stretch of the Protection From Abuse Act," Frankel said.
The claim by James Mueller Jr. that he had no weapons was an important element in the judge's decision to order the search, said Laurie Baughman, a staff attorney for the Civil Legal Representation Project who trains lawyers to represent domestic violence victims.
"You need to have the power to do something about the order that you've created," Baughman said.