Archives for: July 2012, 01

07/01/12

Permalink 09:18:09 am, by fourth, 189 words, 237 views   English (US)
Categories: General

OH5: Reasonable mistake of fact that a wanted person was in the car justified stop

Officer’s reasonable mistake of fact that a passenger in defendant’s car had a warrant out for him made the stop reasonable and with good faith. The trial court’s finding of reasonableness is supported by the record. State v. Butler, 2012 Ohio 2902, 2012 Ohio App. LEXIS 2544 (5th Dist. June 22, 2012):

[*P46] The United States Supreme Court has held that a police officer's mistake of fact will not lead to the suppression of evidence where the mistake was "understandable" and a reasonable response to the situation facing the police officer. Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797, 804, 91 S.Ct.1106, 28 L.Ed.2d 484 (1971). Here, the trial court's finding that Doty's misidentification was reasonable is supported by competent, credible evidence in the record: ...

The state had the burden of proving that the consent to frisk occurred during an “unavoidable lull” in a stop when dispatch was queried for wants or warrants. State v. Dennis, 250 Ore. App. 732, 282 P.3d 955 (2012).*

Defendant discarded the cocaine he was indicted for when he was approached by officers, so his attorney was not ineffective for not moving to suppress. United States v. Calhoun, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90110 (E.D. Pa. June 28, 2012).*

Permalink 08:53:37 am, by fourth, 465 words, 389 views   English (US)
Categories: General

S.D.N.Y.: Breath testing of NYPD officers involved in shootings reasonable under “special needs” doctrine

NYPD’s policy of giving a breath test to officers involved in shooting incidents is reasonable under the “special needs” doctrine. Palladino v. City of New York, 870 F. Supp. 2d 350 (S.D. N.Y. 2012) (prior history: preliminary injunction denied, Palladino v. The City of New York, 07 CV 9246 (S.D.N. Y. Sep. 30, 2008), aff’d Lynch v. City of New York, 589 F.3d 94 (2d Cir. 2009), cert, denied, 131 S. Ct. 415 (2010)):

Plaintiffs argue that the breathalyzer test is unreasonable in light of the emotional trauma NYPD officers might experience after discharging their weapons. NYPD officers are without question a category of the bravest and finest public servants, and often must face the consequences of difficult and even potentially life-threatening situations. But the breathalyzer test—even with its immediate post-shooting application—is not an unreasonably traumatic intrusion when viewed in the context of the thorough post-shooting investigation protocol already in place. Officers understand that there will be an administrative investigation into each instance in which they must discharge their firearms. Officers also understand that they will be subject to a five minute breathalyzer test every time they discharge their weapons and someone is injured as a result. It is a brief, mandatory process. The breathalyzer test is uniformly conducted and is neither arbitrary nor oppressive. The test is conducted immediately to quickly lift the cloud of any suspicion that an officer has acted improperly.

The final balancing factor of the special needs test requires the Court to consider "the nature and immediacy of the government's needs" and "the efficacy of its policy in addressing those needs." Cassidy, 471 F.3d at 75. As the Second Circuit articulated in Lynch, "the NYPD's regulations involving alcohol and firearms are vital to public safety, and the NYPD has a substantial interest in detecting and disciplining officers who violate these policies... [and] in deterring its officers from using their firearms while intoxicated." 589 F.3d at 104. The NYPD has a very practical and important interest in managing its personnel and ensuring that officers comply with the Patrolman's Guide regulations concerning officer fitness for duty. Officers are prohibited from possessing a firearm if they are overly intoxicated. The breathalyzer test deters officers from violating this important rule, and serves to identify those officers who do discharge their weapons while under the influence of alcohol. Accordingly, IO 52 is narrowly tailored to accomplish the NYPD's goals of ensuring compliance with its policies regarding personnel management. See id. ("By quickly and unequivocally determining whether alcohol was involved in an NYPD officer's use of his or her firearm, the breathalyzer policy will assist the NYPD in disciplining officers who use their firearms while intoxicated and will provide an incentive to officers to stow their firearms before drinking alcohol").

Under Von Raab and Skinner, this really was not even a close question.

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"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't."
—Me

"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984).

"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence."
Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961).

Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment.
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987).

"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today."
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting).

"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property."
Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765)

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United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)

"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
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“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
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United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989)

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"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
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