CA2: Protective sweep leading to plain view doesn’t require immediate seizure

Police entered the apartment with an arrest warrant for one occupant and found four living there. A gun and drugs were in plain view. During a protective sweep, a gun and cell phone were found in defendant’s room. They weren’t seized exactly then, but shortly later, and that was not unreasonable. With four people in the place, the police needed to sort out who was responsible for what, and it was certainly less intrusive to question them there rather than take them all in to the station house. They called in names and a separate warrant came back for defendant. “Drug trafficking is plainly a serious crime, one often accompanied by violence …. There was a clear need for the Officers to remain in the apartment long enough to ensure, inter alia, that persons engaged in drug trafficking were not released.” United States v. Delva, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 9645 (2d Cir. June 1, 2017).