Fourth Amendment – Suppression

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Jeremy Banks

Case No.: 22-1312

Officials: Sykes, Chief Judge, and Scudder and Lee, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Fourth Amendment – Suppression

In April 2021 the Springfield, Illinois police saw a Snapchat post of Banks barbequing on his front porch with a gun sitting on the grill’s side shelf. Because Banks was a convicted felon, the officers needed nothing more to request a warrant to arrest him for unlawful gun possession. But they skipped this step and instead proceeded to Banks’s home, walked onto his porch, and, after a tussle, arrested him in his family room. The Fourth Amendment did not permit the shortcut, as the Supreme Court has held in no uncertain terms that a front porch—part of a home’s so-called curtilage—receives the same protection as the home itself. And no exception to the warrant requirement saves the officers’ actions here. The Seventh Circuit reversed the district court’s denial of Banks’s motion to suppress.

Reversed and Remanded.

Decided 02/13/23

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