4th Amendment Violation

Listen to this article

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Keycie A. Street

Case No.: 18-1209

Officials: ROVNER, HAMILTON, and BARRETT, Circuit Judges.

Focus: 4^th Amendment Violation

On October 24, 2015, law enforcement officers in Pewaukee, Wisconsin were searching for two African‐American men who moments before had committed an armed robbery. The robbers had been tracked to the parking lot of a nearby Walmart store. An officer stopped and questioned appellant Keycie Street, the only African‐American man in the crowded Walmart. Street was not arrested then, but during the stop, he provided identifying information that helped lead to his later arrest for the robbery.

Street contends that the stop violated his Fourth Amendment rights because he was stopped based on just a hunch and his race and sex. We disagree. The officers stopped Street based on much more information than his race and sex. They did not carry out a dragnet that used racial profiling. Rather, the police had the combination of Street being where he was, when he was there, and one of a handful of African‐American men on the scene, thus fitting the description of the men who had committed an armed robbery just minutes before. That information gave the officers a reasonable suspicion that Street may have just been involved with an armed robbery, thus authorizing the stop. See generally Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968); United States v. Arthur, 764 F.3d 92, 97–98 (1st Cir. 2014) (affirming denial of motion to suppress results of Terry stop in similar robbery case). We conclude by addressing a procedural issue that arose from the district court’s reference of Street’s motion to suppress to a magistrate judge for a report and recommendation under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b). The magistrate judge recommended denying the motion. The government did not need to file its own objection to the recommendation to argue that the motion to suppress should also be denied on another theory that the magistrate judge had rejected. We affirm Street’s conviction.

Affirmed

Full Text

Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.