COLONIAL HEIGHTS, Va. — An effort by Colonial Heights Rehabilitation and Nursing Center to quash search warrants that allowed police to obtain medical and staff records could help employees who are criminally charged in the abuse and neglect of a resident there, according to CBS 6 legal analyst Todd Stone.
McGuire Woods filed the civil motion in Colonial Heights Circuit Court on April 10, asking to quash two search warrants executed by Colonial Heights Police in November and December as part of their criminal investigation.
They are alleging that the searches and seizures of medical records related to the alleged victim, as well as staff training and personnel records, were unlawful, and they want the records the police obtained returned to the facility.
CBS 6 legal analyst Todd Stone called the motion “unique."
“Usually when someone files a motion to suppress the evidence or effect the search warrant, it’s a criminal defendant. Here you’re talking about the nursing care facility, and they are not charged in the criminal action, so there is really no case involving them at this point,” Stone said.
Stone said a judge will have to determine whether the facility has standing to contest these search warrants.
“The facility itself is not charged in the criminal case, so the judge is going to have to go over the first hurdle, and that is, do they have standing to make this claim in the first place?” Stone said.
The search warrants said the alleged victim in the criminal case, who prosecutors claim received inadequate care, which led to her wounds and ultimately her death, told investigators at the hospital prior to her death that staff at the facility did not help her when she used the bathroom, did not help her eat, and did not help her get dressed.
Previous coverage: Police swarm Colonial Heights nursing home, arrest employees after patient death
Police wrote the resident had an open wound on her back buttock area that was so bad it was beginning to eat at her vaginal area, and it was so severe she would be placed on hospice care because she would never fully recover.
Police wrote that the wound appeared to have come from the resident sitting in her feces for long amounts of time without being moved or cleaned.
In their motion to quash, attorneys for McGuire Woods claim the police failed to establish probable cause for the execution of the search warrants, and failed to follow statutory requirements for the execution of the warrants because police allegedly refused to provide the facility a copy of the search warrants, which a judge had placed under seal.
“The actual search warrant needs to be served on someone when they come,” Stone said.
“If they didn’t produce the search warrants when they came to the facility to obtain the records, could that significantly hinder the criminal cases?” CBS 6 Investigative Reporter Melissa Hipolit asked Stone.
“If the judge finds in favor of the plaintiff in all these legal arguments that could absolutely help the defendants in the criminal case because the criminal defense lawyers would adopt these arguments and apply them in the criminal case, make their own motion to suppress, and it would have an impact on whether that evidence comes in,” Stone said.
A hearing date has not yet been set for each side to make their arguments to a judge.
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