Search and Seizure – arrest — probable cause

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United States Court of Appeals

Criminal

Search and Seizure – arrest — probable cause

Where an officer went to the scene of a crime and saw two individuals matching the description of the suspects, he had probable cause to arrest them.

“The circumstances of McCauley’s arrest are quite different from those at issue in Ybarra. Ybarra happened to be on the premises when the police arrived to investigate someone else. In this case, the police had specific information about two individuals who had participated in a specific crime, including the location where it occurred and a description of the perpetrators. That information pointed to McCauley. Unlike Ybarra, about whom the police knew ‘nothing in particular,’ Wiza knew that a person at the apartment, matching McCauley’s description, had participated in a beating only hours earlier. ‘Probable cause to arrest exists when a reasonably cautious and prudent person would be justified in believing that the individual to be arrested had committed . . . a crime.’ United States v. Askew, 403 F.3d 496, 507 (7th Cir. 2005) (citation and quotation omitted). Ybarra might be instructive if, because the apartment Neeley described was known as a drug house, Wiza had entered through some legitimate means (a search warrant, consent, or observation of drugs in plain sight), and then proceeded to indiscriminately search everyone in the apartment. That is not what occurred here.”

Affirmed.

10-2382 U.S. v. McCauley

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, Crabb, J., Pallmeyer, J.