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Court Finds Inadvertent Out-of-jurisdiction Arrest Reasonable; Declines to Address Sentencing Entrapment and Manipulation Doctrines

By Candace Hom, Melinda Ghilardi, Nancy Rimmer, Sarah Gannett, Renee Pietropaolo and Tieffa Harper

In U.S. v. Sed, --- F.3d ----, 2010 WL 1292152 (Apr. 6, 2010), defendant, convicted of conspiracy to distribute and PWID, challenged (1) the validity of his arrest in Ohio by Pennsylvania state police and (2) the denial of a sentencing reduction based on sentencing entrapment and/or manipulation. First addressing Sed?s arrest, the Circuit held it reasonable under Fourth Amendment despite the fact that Pennsylvania state police violated Ohio law by seizing him outside of their jurisdiction. The Court first rejected the notion that any violation of state law constituted an ipso facto violation of the Fourth Amendment, citing Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164 (2008). Next, the Court found the arrest reasonable under the totality analysis, based on the fact that defendant had committed a serious drug crime in Pennsylvania, was acting in furtherance of conspiracy to distribute drugs in Pennsylvania at time he was seized, was responsible for a last-minute change of plans such that the second controlled buy occurred close to the state line, and that the police intended to arrest Sed in Pennsylvania and believed that they had done so at the time...continue to full post

Full post as published by Third Circuit Blog on April 23, 2010 (boomark / email).