E.D.Ky.: Def’s felony drug arrest after a patdown on RS of fleeing justified search of his car

Defendant was being watched by police, and he was being followed and ran a stop sign. In the stop, the officer told defendant to roll down his window and turn off the car. He rolled the window part way down and turned off the car. Then he rolled up the window and restated the car. “The Court finds that Defendant restarting the vehicle and rolling the passenger side windows back up, along with his general failure to comply with the officers’ instructions during the traffic stop, gave the officers probable cause to believe that he was, at the very least, about to commit the offense of attempt to flee or evade police in the second degree.” That justified removing him from the car and patting him down. The patdown produced drugs, and that justified a search of the car. United States v. Lyvers, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17768 (E.D. Ky. Feb. 4, 2020).*

The affidavit for search warrant didn’t state what crime was under investigation to help narrow the search. “For the reasons stated above, the search warrant lacked the requisite particularity to comply with the Fourth Amendment because it did not refer to a particular crime. Nonetheless, the officers’ reliance on the warrant was objectively reasonable, so the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies. Therefore, the United States has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the search warrant did not violate the Fourth Amendment.” United States v. Maynes, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17864 (D.N.M. Jan. 31, 2020).*