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D.Md.: Pretextual stop argument sufficient when officer cannot remember the traffic offense he stopped defendant for

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Defendant prevailed on his argument of pretext because the officer could not remember the traffic offense he stopped defendant for. United States v. Burke, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19591 (D. Md. March 10, 2009): The evidence at the hearing established that Detective Blasko did not remember the basis for the traffic stop, and there were no contemporaneous documents created that memorialized the reason why Defendant's car was stopped. The best that Det. Blasko could do was make a blanket statement that his regular practice when following a suspicious vehicle was to wait until the vehicle committed a traffic violation, and that he never pulled vehicles over without probable cause. Essentially, Det. Blasko was asking the Court to simply "trust him" and take him at his word that he would not have stopped the car if he had not observed a traffic violation...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on March 14, 2009 (boomark / email).