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Monday, October 26th, 2020

Second Circuit reverses the denial of a motion to suppress a firearm found during a frisk, following a traffic stop, because the officers lacked objective reasons to believe the defendant was armed and dangerous. United States v. Weaver, __F.3d__, No. 18-1697-cr, 2020 WL 5523210 (2d Cir. Sept. 15, 2020).

In United States v. Weaver, No.18-1697, 2020 WL 5523210 (2d Cir. Sept. 15, 2020) , the Second Circuit holds that police officers didn’t have reasonable suspicion that Weaver was armed and dangerous when, after ordering him out of the car, they made him place his hands on the car’s trunk, with his legs spread apart. At best, they had reason to believe Weaver had something illicit. And the search began when Weaver was made to “spread-eagle” on the car trunk — before any officer actually put hands on him.

Judge Pooler wrote the majority opinion; Judge Calabresi concurs in a separate opinion; and Chief Judge Livingston dissents.

I. Facts

At about 5 p.m. in February 2016, when it was still “‘daylight,’” police officers in Syracuse, New York, driving an unmarked car with tinted windows, stopped the car in which Weaver was a passenger, ostensibly for a traffic violation. See…

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Tuesday, April 28th, 2020

Some Summary Orders: Bikes, Guns, Fines

On April 27, 2020, the Second Circuit issued three summary orders in criminal matters.

In United States. v. Cuello, No. 19-2053, the Circuit affirmed a district court’s denial of suppression of a gun found during a traffic stop. This “traffic” stop was of a bike that did not have proper “head and tail lights,” in violation of New York Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1236(a). During the stop, police asked the bike rider for identification and his “bicycle registration.”

Did you know that “bicycle registration” is a thing? Apparently, the Syracuse Revised General Ordinances, Section 29-1 requires every person in the city of Syracuse who owns a bicycle operated in the city to register that bicycle “with the chief of police.” Well.

When the bike rider failed to produce his registration, police asked him about a black backpack he was wearing. Because how suspicious is it to be riding …

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Categories: 922(g), fine, reasonable suspicion, Rehaif, traffic stop

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Friday, September 6th, 2019

Second Circuit upholds prolonged traffic stop based on suspicion that car was stolen, despite database check confirming that it was not stolen.

In United States v. Wallace, No. 17-0472 (2d. Cir. Sept. 3, 2019), the Second Circuit, in an opinion by District Judge Abrams (joined by Judge Winter), upheld the district court’s denial of the defendant’s motion seeking suppression of a firearm recovered following a prolonged traffic stop. Judge Pooler dissented.

After being pulled over for a defective brake light at 7:20 pm, defendant Wallace produced a valid driver’s license but not his registration card. The officers noticed that the registration and inspection stickers on the car were damaged and faded and that there were marks on the car’s door suggesting that it had been pried open. Wallace explained that the stickers had been damaged by a defogging spray and that the door damage was from a prior occasion when he had locked himself out of the car. Although the Vehicle Identification Number (“VIN”) on the registration sticker was only partially …

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Categories: car stop, Fourth Amendment, reasonable suspicion, traffic stop

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Friday, May 18th, 2018

Supreme Court Roundup (including post-Dimaya GVRs)

This week the Supreme Court issued a number of significant criminal opinions, as well as a number of GVRs signalling that the holding of Sessions v. Dimaya likely extends to § 924’s residual clause (18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(B)).

In McCoy v. Louisiana, 16-8255, the Court held that it was structural Sixth Amendment error for an attorney to concede a defendant’s guilt, against his wishes, in the hope of sparing him the death penalty. McCoy’s attorney argued that his client lacked the mental capacity to form the specific intent necessary for first-degree murder, see slip op. at 3 n.1, but conceded in his opening statement that the jury could not reach “any other conclusion than Robert McCoy was the cause of” the victims’ deaths. Id. at 4. This strategy, the Court held, violated the client’s Sixth Amendment rights regardless whether it was “counsel’s experienced-based view . . . that confessing …

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Categories: 924(c), Fourth Amendment, ineffective assistance of counsel, right to counsel, traffic stop, wiretaps

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Tuesday, December 5th, 2017

“Unrelated inquiries that prolong or add time to a traffic stop violate the Fourth Amendment absent reasonable suspicion of a separate crime.”

The title is the holding of today’s Second Circuit opinion in United States v. Gomez (Parker, Wesley, Droney) (on appeal from D. Conn.). Specifically, the Circuit held that (1) the Fourth Amendment was violated when officers prolonged a minutes-long traffic stop to investigate matters unrelated to the pretextual basis for the stop, but that (2) suppression was not warranted because the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied. The opinion is available here.

A DEA task force had been investigating Mr. Gomez in connection with a heroin trafficking operation. One of the task force members, a Hartford police officer, testified that he observed the defendant commit three traffic violations. The officer used these violations as grounds to conduct a traffic stop. “From the moment” the officer first approached the car, “his questioning detoured from the mission of the stop (Gomez’s traffic violations) to the DEA’s heroin-trafficking investigation.” Slip …

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Categories: forfeiture, Fourth Amendment, good faith, traffic stop, waiver

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Wednesday, August 31st, 2016

Second Circuit Updates – August 31, 2016

In United States v. Cunningham, No. 14-4425, the Court reversed Judge Sullivan’s decision denying a suppression motion in a robbery case where a gun was recovered from defendant-appellant Damian Cunningham’s vehicle after a traffic stop. The Court found that the circumstances of the stop did not justify a full protective search, noting in part that gender and race may have played a part in the determination of immediate danger that led to the search and the denial of the suppression motion. Full discussion to follow.…

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Monday, January 19th, 2009

Crosswalk Puzzle

United States v. Stewart, No. 07-3003-cr (2d Cir. January 8, 2009) (Winter, Miner, Cabranes, CJJ)

Brett Stewart was a passenger in a livery cab that stopped at a red light. Two police officers claimed that the cab’s front wheels ended up in the crosswalk, a traffic violation. They pulled over the cab and recovered a gun from Stewart.

At Stewart’s suppression hearing, the officers gave their account, while the cab driver testified that he stopped before entering the crosswalk, which the district court credited. The court found that the officers had been subject to an optical illusion or distraction; it took judicial notice “of the fact that a stationary object may shift in one’s visual perception as one moves past it [and thus] that an object abutting a straight line may appear to be over that line as an observer moves past and away from that line.” The district court …

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Categories: probable cause, reasonable suspicion, traffic stop, Uncategorized

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