By: Derek Hawkins//April 18, 2016//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: United States of America v. Berton Mays
Case No.: 15-2152
Officials: FLAUM and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges, and PETERSON, District Judge
Focus: Motion to Suppress – 4th amendment
Motion to suppress statements made to federal agents while in pre-trial confinement denied as there were no 6th amendment violations of right to counsel. Also, officer’s stop supported by reasonable suspicion.
“First, although the Government concedes that Officer Lepsky did not have reasonable suspicion to believe that Mr. Mays actually was involved in the fight, he knew that Mr. Mays had left the scene upon the arrival of Officer Coffing, a factor that we have held can be “suggestive of wrongdoing and can be…considered in a court’s determination of …reasonable suspicion.” United States v. Carlisle, 614 F.3d 750, 756 (7th Cir. 2010); see Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 124 (holding that “unprovoked flight upon noticing the police” is pertinent to the reasonable suspicion analysis); Lawshea, 461 F.3d at 860 (refusing to draw a constitutional distinction between running from the police and walking away evasively); United States v. Valentine, 232 F.3d 350, 357 (3d Cir. 2000) (“In evaluating the totality of the circumstances, we must also take into account that Valentine and the two men with him immediately began walking away from the patrol car when it arrived. Walking away from the police hardly amounts to the headlong flight considered in Wardlow and of course would not give rise to reasonable suspicion by itself, even in a high-crime area, but it is a factor that can be considered in the totality of the circumstances.”). Officer Lepsky also knew that the fight had taken place in a high-crime area. Although this fact alone “cannot, in and of itself, support a particularized suspicion…an officer is permitted to consider a location’s characteristics when assessing a situation.” United States v. Oglesby, 597 F.3d 891, 894 (7th Cir. 2010).”
Affirmed