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NC: Officers imposing on defendant that she submit to searches made it all unreasonable

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

"This case presents the question whether a police encounter with defendant triggered defendant's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable seizure. We conclude that a reasonable person in defendant's position would not have felt free to refuse an officer's request to search her purse or otherwise terminate the encounter under the totality of circumstances that here included the officer's initiation of the encounter, his declaration to defendant and her companion that he was investigating drug crimes and prostitution, his call for a backup officer, his persistence when defendant did not respond to his initial efforts to make contact, his request that defendant produce identification, and his requests to defendant that she both exit the vehicle with her purse and allow him to ascertain its contents...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on July 22, 2009 (boomark / email).