Handcuffing during a traffic stop does not equal custody for Miranda purposes in this case
Facts Braylon Coulter was driving an old van with squeaky brakes through a neighborhood at 2:41 a.m. on July 15, 2018. Officer Nino de Guzman of the Lancaster, Texas Police Department began following Coulter and discovered that the van was registered to an address in a different city, that its registration was expired, and that […]
Subject’s proficiency in English was not a barrier to his consent or statement
Facts In 2016, Gustavo Lopez was driving a GMC Sierra northbound on Interstate 59 when he was pulled over by Detective Daniel Quave with the Pearl River County Sheriff’s Office for following another vehicle too closely. According to Detective Quave’s incident report, Lopez was identified by his Guatemalan Identification Card, and Lopez stated he was in […]
Search warrant that did not comply with Rule 4.3 was found valid
Facts Since May 2017, agents with the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office, Special Investigations Division, had received information based on other arrests that Fredrick Jenkins supplied marijuana to numerous individuals in the DeSoto County area. On February 2, 2018, the agents received information from a K9 deputy in Kansas (Deputy Kalen Robinson) that in late January […]
Medical care for inmate was not provided in this case
Facts Marshawn Williams and his longtime girlfriend, Lavina Smith, got into a physical altercation at their Yazoo City, Mississippi home. A witness alerted both Smith’s family and police. Smith’s family arrived first. Outraged that Williams had been violent to his sister, Smith’s brother hit Williams on the side with either a bedrail or a metal pipe. […]
Applying pressure after subject is subdued in jail which resulted in death
Facts By October 2017, Kelli Page had spent several months in the Coryell County jail awaiting trial. She was a 46-year-old woman, who stood 5’6” and weighed 220 pounds. She had serious mental health challenges as well as physical ailments. On the morning of October 8, Page woke up around 7:30 a.m. What happened for […]
Description is too vague for stop in this case
Facts In 2019, federal and Texas law enforcement conducted a state-wide “roundup” of known gang members with outstanding warrants. Officer Martin Deleon, a thirty-two-year Corpus Christi Police Department veteran with twenty-eight years in the gang unit, led a team of about a dozen officers. Each team received a packet of fifteen to twenty subjects grouped […]