Fourth Circuit: Walking Past Unoccupied Home With Bulging Pocket and Attempting to Evade Neighborhood Tipster Insufficient for Reasonable Suspicion to Seize and Search by Anthony Accurso by Anthony W. Accurso The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overruled the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West …

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court: Criminal Record Alone Does Not Justify Patfrisk, Gun Discovered in Waistband Suppressed by Jacob Barrett by Jacob Barrett The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld a Superior Court’s order granting a motion to suppress a firearm that was discovered during an unlawful patfrisk because the motorist’s …

NYC’s Stop-and-Frisk Still Targets Based on Race by Jayson Hawkins by Jayson Hawkins New York City’s 2021 mayoral candidates faced the same issues that plague every metropolitan area—crime, COVID, climate change—but questions about the city’s allegedly reformed “stop-and-frisk” policy occupied a prominent place in the debates. The practice, which began …

Ninth Circuit: Directly Searching Inside Detainee’s Pocket Not a Valid Terry Frisk for Weapons by Anthony Accurso by Anthony W. Accurso The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that police exceeded their authority to search for weapons under Terry when they directly searched the inside pocket of …

Fifth Circuit: Conviction Vacated Because No Reasonable Suspicion to Search Person in High-Crime Area by Anthony Accurso by Anthony Accurso The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a defendant’s conviction for possessing a firearm after determining officers lacked reasonable suspicion to stop and search him. Raymond L. …

Second Circuit: Nondescript Photo of Unidentified Black Male Insufficient Grounds to Conduct Investigatory Stop by Anthony Accurso by Anthony Accurso The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a lower court order denying defendant’s evidence suppression motion on the grounds that a photo, which provided very little identifying …

$90,042.12 Awarded in Fees and Costs in Seattle Terry Stop Case by Mark Wilson by Mark Wilson On August 4, 2011, a federal court in Washington state granted attorneys’ fees and costs on a Plaintiff’s Terry stop verdict. Yet the court reduced the $418,000 fee award request to just $90,042.12 …