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D.Neb.: Getting defendant off a train was a seizure without PC

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Defendant was confronted by officers during a train stopover in Omaha. One bag was found with a lock and no tags and the officers asked who it belonged to and nobody claimed it. The officers saw defendant and decided that he was nervous looking, so they started talking to him and he told them his name, provided ID, told them where he was going to visit a girlfriend, and, when the train was about to leave, they got him off the train. He was effectively seized at that point, and the seizure of the second bag was unlawful. United States v. Posadas, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104618 (D. Neb. December 29, 2008): Even if the evidence could show that the officers were operating on anything more than a "hunch," the defendant in this case was effectively taken into custody when he was asked to leave the train, which would require probable cause...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on January 01, 2009 (boomark / email).