{"id":2536,"date":"2008-12-24T11:28:46","date_gmt":"2008-10-09T05:40:26","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-09T05:40:26","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=2536","title":{"rendered":"D. Conn.: Search incident after being handcuffed face down on floor violated Chimel<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Search incident under a mattress revealing a gun, where the defendant was handcuffed face down on the floor and after his arrest, was unreasonable under a realistic application of Chimel<\/em><\/a>. United States v. Julius, 577 F. Supp. 2d 588 (D. Conn. 2008):<\/p>\n

Under the principles of Chimel<\/em>, as applied in Blue<\/em> and Hernandez<\/em>, the search in this case can be sustained only if the evidence permits a finding that there was some risk the defendant could reach into the area where the gun was located after he was taken away in handcuffs by Officer Barry. The Government urges that a reasonably prudent officer in Deputy Wood’s position would believe that the area under the mattress was within the defendant’s grab area after he was arrested. Govt.’s Supp. Mem. at 11. In support of this contention, the Government states that “the search through the clothing and underneath the mattress began instantaneously with the defendant’s removal from the bed to the corner of the room where the firearm was found and lasted only a few seconds as the defendant was being escorted around the bed by Officer Barry.” Id.<\/em> at 12. I do not agree with the Government’s statement of the facts. Deputy Wood began the search after the defendant was handcuffed. See Tr. 149-50. His search through the clothing and other items on the floor took more than a few seconds. By his own estimate, the cursory search took nearly a minute. Tr. 147. By the time Deputy Wood lifted the mattress, the defendant was on the opposite side of the bed near the doorway. The defendant was securely under the control of Officer Barry the entire time. On these facts, it cannot be said that the area under the mattress was within the defendant’s immediate control as defined in Chimel<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Comment:<\/em> It is refreshing to see a court actually apply Chimel<\/em> without being seduced by the government’s argument that anything goes during a search incident, which is exactly where the cases have been going for the last decade. This is one of the issues in Arizona v. Gant<\/em><\/a>, argued Tuesday in the Supremes. <\/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-2536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536","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=2536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}