dave submitted a really interesting story about someone who consented to a police search. The catch? The officer asking to do the search knew he was looking for drugs, but claimed he was searching for a place described in a sexual assault case.

Manar was allowed into the home, where he found a small amount of cocaine and marijuana and then arrested the homeowner, Frederick Carl "Fritz" Krause III. "I was outraged," recalled Krause, who was fired from his job as a director at WPSD-TV after the March 2003 arrest. "You would think you could trust authorities to tell you the truth."

Krause, then 29, pleaded guilty to possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia -- but on the condition he could challenge the legality of the search. Today, as a result, the Kentucky Supreme Court will hear arguments on an issue it has never addressed: Whether a defendant's consent to a search can ever be "voluntary" -- as required for a search without a warrant -- when it is the product of a police officer's deceit and misrepresentation.

Courts have long held that police may try to trick suspects during interrogations -- by falsely telling them that their fingerprints were found at the scene, for example, or that a partner confessed and implicated them. The thinking is that the suspect is already in custody and has been read his rights. But constitutional law experts say the use of trickery to get permission for a search is more troubling because it easily can be coercive. "Anyone falsely accused of sexually assaulting a young girl would allow the search in order to clear himself," said Wayne LaFave, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois College of Law and author of a six-volume treatise on searches and seizures.

"You kind of wince a bit and it's not something you want to do, but sometimes you have to use deception because it is necessary to solve crimes," said Louisville Metro Louisville Police Detective Larry Duncan. "I refer to it as a little white lie."