{"id":7808,"date":"2013-02-11T13:29:37","date_gmt":"2012-10-07T11:03:30","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-07T11:03:30","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=7808","title":{"rendered":"LA4: Stop was without justification, as was pat down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defendant was talking to somebody in an SUV who fled when the police appeared. Defendant got on a bicycle and rode away. He was stopped by the officers and was told to assume the position with his hands on the car. There was no justification for a pat down, and the officers really acted like they don\u2019t know what the constitution requires. State v. Butler<\/a>, 101 So. 3d 121 (La.App. 4 Cir. 2012)*:<\/p>\n

Thus, according to the explicit testimony of the police officers, they exited their police car, ordered the defendant to stop and put his hands on the police vehicle to be patted down. There is no evidence that the defendant was involved in any suspicious or illegal activity prior to the pat-down. In fact, the police officers specifically testified that they had a clear view of the defendant from a short distance and saw no interchange between the defendant and the occupants of the vehicle. Thus, the record before us bears no indicia of any particularized suspicion that this defendant was involved with drugs or drug transactions except for the rationale underlying the proactive patrol, i.e. the area around Danneel and Seventh Streets is considered (like many areas of New Orleans) a high crime area.<\/p>\n

Thus, this case appears to exemplify the concern expressed by the Justice Department (and ultimately conceded by the city in the Consent Decree) pertaining to inadequate training of NOPD officers with regard to the constitutional [Pg 10] parameters of search and seizure. See United States Department of Justice, Investigation of the New Orleans Police Department (3\/16\/2011), pp. 30-31 (NOPD’s lack of adequate policy and training regarding search and seizure have left officers without basic foundation to perform their duties within constitutional boundaries).<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/p>\n

The police actions and testimony in this case exemplify concerns expressed by the Justice Department, and conceded by the City, as to whether officers of the New Orleans Police Department have been adequately trained regarding the constitutional boundaries of search and seizure. See United States Department Of Justice, Investigation of the New Orleans Police Department (3\/16\/2011), pp. 30-31; see also United States of America v. The City of New Orleans, 2:12-01924 (E.D. La. 7\/24\/12), pp. 12, 38-44. Thus, the trial court clearly erred in denying the defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence and statement. Accordingly, the defendant’s conviction is vacated and the matter is remanded back to the trial court. Although our review of the record reveals two errors patent pertaining to the defendant’s sentencing, because we reverse the judgment of the trial court and vacate the defendant’s conviction, we pretermit discussion of those errors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\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-7808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}