CA9: Suspicionless search of unconscious person in hospital bed violated clearly established law

“Thus, under binding precedent from this court and the Supreme Court, any reasonable officer would have known that Defendants’ suspicionless and warrantless search of Katzenjammer’s body, while she lay unconscious in a hospital bed, violated the Fourth Amendment.” Young v. Hauri, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 16270 (9th Cir. June 1, 2021).

“There are lots of laws regulating automobile traffic. Some of them are underenforced, and many drivers commit infractions without getting caught or cited by the police. Add to that the rule that an officer’s ulterior motives do not make an objectively lawful traffic stop unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment, and you get a recipe for uneven law enforcement and the seeds of community distrust. See Sarah A. Seo, Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom (2019); Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813 (1996). But while these concerns hover in the background, the question presented in this case is straightforward: did Chicago police officers observe a traffic violation before they pulled over defendant Marshall Payne?” “ In light of my findings, there was no Fourth Amendment violation. The officers observed two traffic violations, and that justified Payne’s detention. Rosa properly seized the gun during the stop. The motion to suppress evidence is denied.” United States v. Payne, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 102576 (N.D. Ill. June 1, 2021).*