{"id":2227,"date":"2008-08-31T20:49:04","date_gmt":"2008-07-06T08:13:33","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-06T08:13:33","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=2227","title":{"rendered":"CA9: 75 minute detention of abortion protestors violated Fourth Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"

L.A. County S.O.’s stop of a billboard truck for driving around a middle school with pictures of an aborted fetus was arguably reasonable when it happened, but the 75 minute detention thereafter to figure out whether the driver had violated any laws was unreasonable. Also, the ticketing that did occur had no reasonable basis in the law. The officers were not entitled to qualified immunity for the 75 minute detention while they waited for a superviser to try and figure out whether plaintiffs could be charged with anything. Center for Bio-Ethical Reform v. Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/a>, 533 F.3d 780 (9th Cir. 2008):<\/p>\n

This basis for continued detention does not comport with Fourth Amendment standards. The investigative purposes permitted by detention are ones of fact, not law. See Michigan v. Summers<\/em><\/a>, 452 U.S. 692, 700 n.12 (1981) (listing some investigative techniques that may be used during a Terry stop: “interrogation[;] … communicat[ion] with others, either police or private citizens, in an effort to verify the explanation tendered or to confirm the identification or determine whether a person of that identity is otherwise wanted[;] … [and determination of whether] in fact an offense has occurred in the area”). Thus, an officer’s uncertainty about the law cannot excuse the detention. To permit otherwise “would remove the incentive for police to make certain that they properly understand the law that they are entrusted to enforce and obey.” See United States v. Lopez-Soto<\/em>, 205 F.3d 1101, 1106 (9th Cir. 2000); see also United States v. Tibbetts<\/em>, 396 F.3d 1132, 1138 (10th Cir. 2005) (“[F]ailure to understand the law by the very person charged with enforcing it is not objectively reasonable.”) (emphasis in original); cf. United States v. Booker<\/em>, 496 F.3d 717, 722 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (“Unlike stops premised on mistakes of fact, ‘[s]tops premised on a mistake of law, even a reasonable, good-faith mistake, are generally held to be unconstitutional.'”) (alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Coplin<\/em>, 463 F.3d 96, 101 (1st Cir. 2006)).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Judgment for police defendants affirmed on the claim that there was no probable cause for issuance of the search warrant. A substantial basis was shown. Kelley v. McCafferty<\/a>, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 13906, 2008 FED App. 0380N (6th Cir. June 26, 2008).* (unpublished)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}