Search & Seizure | Virginia Lawyers Weekly

Suppression Reversed for Probable Cause

By Deborah Elkins
Published: February 15, 2012
Tags: Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr., Search & Seizure, Virginia Court of Appeals

On the commonwealth’s appeal, the Court of Appeals reverses the trial court’s pretrial order suppressing defendant’s admission of theft after his arrest and remands for a new trial.
A Dollar General Store employee called 911 after he believe he observed an individual shoplifting. He described the shoplifter as a white male, age 25 to 35, his [...]

No Suppression Under Posse Comitatus

By Deborah Elkins
Published: February 1, 2012
Tags: Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, Search & Seizure, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

A Russian national woman who initially was investigated by the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service for an alleged sham marriage to an enlisted Navy sailor, but who ultimately was prosecuted for a sham marriage to a civilian, cannot get the indictment against her and her husband dismissed as a [...]

Illegal Stop Not Purged by Assault

By Deborah Elkins
Published: February 1, 2012
Tags: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge G. Steven Agee, Search & Seizure

The 4th Circuit upholds suppression of a gun seized from a vehicle passenger during an illegal stop, and rejects the government’s argument that the illegality of the stop was purged when defendant resisted arrest and assaulted an officer.
The district court found as a factual matter that an officer could not see the slight crack in [...]

Detective Comment Not ‘Interrogation’

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 19, 2012
Tags: Justice William C. Mims, Search & Seizure, Supreme Court of Virginia

Although a detective may have directly addressed defendant, who had asked for a lawyer, when he repeated that a co-defendant had made a statement about deciding to rob a “white lady” and hit her in the head with a brick, the detective’s comments were not the functional equivalent of interrogation, and the Supreme Court of [...]

ID Request Was Consensual Encounter

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 18, 2012
Tags: Justice Charles S. Russell, Search & Seizure, Supreme Court of Virginia

A deputy’s initial encounter with a man sitting in his vehicle in a rural driveway where police went to serve felony warrants and request for the man’s license was a consensual encounter and police did not violate defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights when they found cocaine in defendant’s pocket after he consented to a search of [...]

Protective Sweep of Meth-Lab Home Upheld

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 17, 2012
Tags: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Robert B. King, Search & Seizure

Police had reasonable articulable suspicion to conduct a protective sweep of a home suspected of being a meth lab after arresting the husband of the couple charged with conspiracy to manufacture meth on an extradition warrant to Georgia, based on factors that included prior surveillance of the residence and the number of vehicles outside the [...]

Repeat Searches of Slate Quarry Upheld

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 17, 2012
Tags: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Roger L. Gregory, Search & Seizure

A Virginia slate quarry that was subjected to 25 warrantless inspections of its mining operations over a seven-month period under the state’s Mineral and Mine Safety Act and cited for 32 violations has no civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for illegal searches because neither the Act authorizing the searches nor conduct of [...]

Strip Search, Knife Use ‘Unreasonable,’ Court Says

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 10, 2012
Tags: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Barbara Milano Keenan, Search & Seizure

Although police did not completely pull down defendant’s pants during a search incident to his arrest on a public residential street, but shone a flashlight down his pants and then used a knife to cut a sandwich baggie with suspected narcotics off defendant’s genitals, the search was a strip search that violated defendant’s Fourth Amendment [...]

Officer’s ‘Known Facts’ OK Under Leon

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 9, 2012
Tags: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, Search & Seizure

Although a search warrant application did not specifically connect defendant to the residence to be searched, police had obtained extensive detail from a woman whose nephew shared defendant’s strong interest in acquiring weapons and explosives, and who confiscated from her nephew’s bedroom chemicals and their safety data sheets, and reported her nephew’s statement that defendant [...]

Pat Down Upheld for Gas-Station Watcher

By Deborah Elkins
Published: December 14, 2011
Tags: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, Search & Seizure

Police who observed defendant at 4:40 a.m. near a gas station that had been robbed previously, in an area outside surveillance-camera range, apparently stalking the gas-station attendant, had reasonable suspicion to perform a stop-and-frisk and the 4th Circuit upholds the pat down, admission of the gun in defendant’s pocket and his conviction for possession of [...]

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