Totality of factors allowed stop to be extended
Facts At the hearing on the motion to suppress, the parties presented the testimony of Patrol Officer Travis Burkholder, an offense report prepared by Narcotics Detective Matthew Sedillo, both of the Midland Police Department (MPD), and Burkholder’s dashcam and bodycam footage. Burkholder had been a police officer for roughly a year and-a-half at the time […]
Qualified immunity denied when exculpatory evidence not shared with grand jury
Facts (If you are new to 1983 actions, click here for help) In February 2020, someone shot and killed Nicolas Robertson in Jackson, Mississippi. Two months later, law enforcement arrested Samuel Jennings for burglary and grand larceny. Once Jennings was jailed, he provided a handwritten, signed statement about the Robertson murder to Jackson Police Department […]
Search warrant was not bare boned and thus evidence was admissible
Facts Detective Jeff Scroggins of the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office believed that Quwinton Norman was supplying methamphetamine to a narcotics distributor, Fleet Wallace. Scroggins applied for search warrants for Norman’s apartment, where Norman had conducted a drug transaction with Wallace, and a nearby house, where Norman spent the night after the transaction. Scroggins’s two-and-a-half-page affidavit […]
Statement not suppressed when Agent presented miranda card in spanish to subject
Facts Rodrigo Napoles Briseño arrested for kidnapping by cartel members. (Facts removed for brevity and to focus on Miranda issue). Immediately after the arrest, FBI agents took Briseño to a local jail and booked him into custody. None of the arresting officers spoke Spanish, but the agent interviewing Briseño was a “level two Spanish speaker,” […]
Detention proper and no retaliation found by officers
Facts (If you are new to 1983 actions, click here for help) Ismael Rincon owns an empty, unimproved plot of land along the northern shoreline of the Rio Grande River in Laredo, Texas. Rincon regularly parked his Ford truck at this plot, and in March 2019, the truck was vandalized. To prevent any further vandalism […]
Qualified immunity denied when officer kills homeowner at “open structure call”
Facts (If you are new to 1983 actions, click here for help) On October 12, 2019, at 2:25 a.m., the Fort Worth Police Department received a phone call from one of Atatiana Jefferson’s neighbors. The neighbor told the police that he was concerned that Jefferson’s front door was open. The neighbor also explicitly said that […]