ID Request Was Consensual Encounter

Search of Driver’s Laptop Upheld

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 1, 2012
Tags: Judge Norman K. Moon, Search & Seizure, U.S. District Court - Western District

A Lynchburg U.S. District Court denies defendant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained from a search of his laptop computer and other electronic effects, seized when rangers on the Blue Ridge Parkway stopped the 57-year-old defendant at a DUI checkpoint and discovered he was driving on a suspended license and a missing persons report had been [...]

Passenger’s Firearm Is Admissible

By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 3, 2012
Tags: Judge T.S. Ellis III, Search & Seizure, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

A passenger in a vehicle stopped for excessive window tint and defective rear brake light cannot suppress a firearm found in the glove box by asserting the officer unnecessarily prolonged the stop for 19 minutes as he waited for a canine team and questioned the driver; the Alexandria U.S. District Court says the traffic stop [...]

Vehicle Search Did Not Exceed Consent

By Deborah Elkins
Published: February 29, 2012
Tags: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Paul V. Niemeyer, Search & Seizure

The 4th Circuit offers a refresher course in assessing “probable cause” and reverses a district court order suppressing drugs found in a secret compartment of defendant’s car because the district court applied the wrong standards for determining whether police had defendant’s consent to search the vehicle and whether there was probable cause to search it. [...]

Traffic Stop Extension Not Illegal

By Deborah Elkins
Published: February 24, 2012
Tags: Judge Glen E. Conrad, Search & Seizure, U.S. District Court - Western District

Although a trooper prolonged his traffic stop for excessive window tinting and a partially obscured license plate to ask some questions unrelated to the reasons for the stop, the additional time to inquire about defendant’s protective order and check his criminal background, prior to the drug dog’s alert, did not violate defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights, [...]

False Statement Provides Probable Cause

By Deborah Elkins
Published: February 16, 2012
Tags: Judge Pamela Meade Sargent, Search & Seizure, U.S. District Court - Western District

A magistrate judge for the Big Stone Gap U.S. District Court recommends denying defendants’ motion to suppress evidence of drugs found in their van stopped within the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, as testimony from a park ranger and the recording of the traffic stop show the van’s owner consented to the search. Police found [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]