Search and Seizure Decisions Go Against Defendants

U.S. v. Yeomans, 2007 WL 30032 (1/5/07)(unpub'd) - Officer safety justified a patdown of the passenger and a search of the passenger compartment where the officers knew one of the occupants was the subject of two restraining orders possibly involving domestic violence, the officers saw guns and ammunition in the jeep, and the passenger acknowledged he owned them. It didn't matter that no evidence indicated the officers were actually afraid.

U.S. v. Castro-Portillo, 2007 WL 10761 (1/3/07)(unpub'd) - The 10th extends Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692 (1981), which permits the seizing of people at a place that is being searched pursuant to a search warrant, to someone who left the home to be searched prior to the search and was stopped two blocks away. Handcuffing the defendant was justified by his nervousness and the fact he left a house subject to search for weapons. The d.ct. could impose an enhancement pursuant to § 851 for a marijuana conviction, even though the government indicated in the § 851 notice and orally it was only seeking an enhancement for counts of which the defendant was eventually acquitted. The defendant failed to show how he would have conducted his defense any differently had notice been accurate.