{"id":50892,"date":"2021-12-25T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-25T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=50892"},"modified":"2021-12-25T04:22:37","modified_gmt":"2021-12-25T09:22:37","slug":"ca7-holding-ones-dl-it-not-itself-a-seizure-what-does-the-totality-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=50892","title":{"rendered":"CA7: Holding one’s DL it not itself a seizure; what does the totality show?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The officer\u2019s holding defendant\u2019s driver\u2019s license and rental agreement is not itself a seizure. The question is how long they are held and the circumstances they were held. United States v. Ahmad<\/a>, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 37991 (7th Cir. Dec. 22, 2021):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

We held that the officers’ encounter with Soto-Lopez [United States v. Soto-Lopez, 995 F.2d 694 (7th Cir. 1993)] was consensual and did not “escalate” to a seizure when the officers briefly retained his identification and other documents while the interview was underway. Id. at 698. We explained that the defendant “was not deprived of his ticket or identification for an unusual length of time, nor was he taken to an isolated area while the agents had his documents.” Id.<\/p>

Soto-Lopez makes clear that an officer’s retention of a suspect’s identification does not necessarily transform an otherwise consensual encounter into a seizure. What’s important is how long and under what circumstances the suspect’s identification documents were retained. Here, Suttles held Ahmad’s driver’s license and the RV rental agreement for only a few minutes before Ahmad consented to the search, hardly an “unusual length of time.” And when weighed in the balance with all of the other circumstances that we’ve mentioned, the deputy’s brief retention of Ahmad’s documents did not transform this otherwise consensual encounter into a seizure. Ahmad’s consent to the search of the RV was therefore voluntary. The judge properly denied the suppression motion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The officer\u2019s holding defendant\u2019s driver\u2019s license and rental agreement is not itself a seizure. The question is how long they are held and the circumstances they were held. United States v. Ahmad, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 37991 (7th Cir. Dec. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seizure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50892","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50893,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50892\/revisions\/50893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}