By: Derek Hawkins//July 28, 2015//
Civil
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Officials: POSNER, EASTERBROOK, and SYKES, Circuit Judges
Unreasonable Seizure of Leasehold – Fourth Amendment
No. 14-3388
Where failure of the sheriff to meet the 10-day deadline to complete an eviction pursuant to a court-ordered writ of restitution held not to violate the Fourth Amendment because the deadline is imposed by state law rather than federal.
“We agree that the eviction did not violate the Fourth Amendment even if the sheriff missed the 10‐day deadline. And not because of the skunk’s intervention. The 10‐day deadline is imposed by state law rather than by the Fourth Amendment. The standard governing the legality of a search or seizure challenged under the Fourth Amendment is furnished by federal rather than state law. Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164, 176 (2008); Sroga v. Weiglen, 649 F.3d 604, 607 (7th Cir. 2011); Jackson v. Parker, 627 F.3d 634, 640 (7th Cir. 2010). And the standard is reasonableness, not ten days; and even if the sheriff’s team should not have blanched at having to confront a skunk, Kreil hasn’t shown that the length of time it took the sheriff to remove all of Kreil’s possessions was unreasonable. It’s true that in Wolf‐Lillie v. Sonquist, 699 F.2d 864 (7th Cir. 1983), a district court’s holding that a writ of restitution executed after the state’s statutory deadline violated the Fourth Amendment wasn’t contested on appeal. But even if our opinion in that case could be read as endorsing that district court’s holding, this would not help Kreil because any such reading would be contrary to the Supreme Court’s decision in Virginia v. Moore”
Affirmed.