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CA7: Defendant driving into the security permeter of a heavily armed nighttime search could be stopped

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Defendant could be stopped when he was entering the security perimeter of a search just as a nighttime search was about to occur. Officers approached him with guns drawn and saw drugs in plain view. United States v. Jennings, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 19560 (7th Cir. September 15, 2008): It is a logical extension of the rule of Summers and the reasoning in Bohannon and Baker to hold here that it was reasonable for the officers to briefly detain Jennings after he entered the security perimeter surrounding the apartment where the narcotics search was underway. Although Jennings never stepped onto the property being searched, he entered the officers' security perimeter just as a SWAT team armed with high-powered rifles entered the apartment from the rear...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on September 17, 2008 (boomark / email).