LA: Court holds that open transport of rifle not "reasonable suspicion"

The State agrees it is not a crime for a citizen to possess a gun. However, “[a]s Officer Boyd clarifies it is suspicious for an individual to transport a semi-automatic rifle and to change its location in the middle of the street.”

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In the current case, the deputy, when asked, “How often do you see people transporting semiautomatic assault rifles from one trunk to another in the middle of the street?” he replied, “Not often,” and then agreed it was suspicious.

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In the present case, the police forcibly restrained defendant by handcuffing him and putting him in the back seat of the police car bound for the station. No reasonable person in this position could have believed he or she was “free to go,” and indeed defendant was not. In addition, Officer Taylor testified that he intended to take defendant to the police station, indicating an unmistakable intent to impose a restriction on defendant‟s liberty more extensive than an investigatory stop.

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The men were ordered to their knees at gunpoint by numerous law enforcement officers, handcuffed, and immediately questioned, all without probable cause or reasonable suspicion that they had committed, were committing, or about to commit a crime. The evidence and statements were inadmissible for the reason the detention was illegal and that there were no intervening circumstances between the discovery of the rifle and Defendant‟s statements which would show an independent act of free will. Accordingly, the trial court erred when it denied Defendant‟s motion to suppress the evidence.

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skidmark said:

SNIP Once more, I am grateful that our judicial system not only allows but insists on letting folks go free because of a "mere technicality" who otherwise ought to be, in my carefully considered and infallible opinion, wasting away under the jail.

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Citizen said:

I am grateful when it occurs.

Unfortunately, too many courts twist and contort the law in order to manufacture a reason to keep the defendant in the government's mailed fist. The result is loss of constitutional protections as police take the latest loosening, and come up with creative ways to stretch that.

You can find out lots more about this by regularly checking in at http://www.fourthamendment.com/blog/ which is maintained by John Wesley Hall a very experienced criminal defense attorney.

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