On Point: 35. Search & Seizure

State v. Jeffrey L. Ionescu, 2019 WI App 68; case activity (including briefs)

A homeowner told police that he found a burglar in his car and saw him run west across his yard. About 10 minutes later, officer and a trained tracking dog headed in that direction for about 30 minutes. The officer saw footprints, and the dog detected scent, off and on along the way. Eventually they reached the yard of burglar’s mother and entered it without a warrant. She let them enter her home where they found Ionescu. Was this pursuit cold, warm or hot?

State v. Tunis Jay LeFever, 2019AP702-CR, District 2, 10/30/19, (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

An officer stopped LeFever for speeding, noticed that he had bloodshot eyes, and detected a faint odor of alcohol but wasn’t sure of the source. He asked LeFever to complete field sobriety tests. The officer noted indicators of impairment on some of the tests and LeFever’s bright green tongue. A PBT test did not detect the presence of alcohol in LeFever’s system. The officer suspected marijuana.

State v. Mose B. Coffee, 2018AP1209, petition for review granted 10/18/19; affirmed 6/5/20; case activity (including briefs)

Issue:

Whether evidence obtained during a warrantless search of a person’s vehicle
incident to his OWI arrest must be suppressed when there was no reason to believe that evidence of the OWI arrest would be found in the area of the vehicle searched by officers.

State v. John W. Lane, 2019AP153-CR, District 4, 10/17/19 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Lane consented to a blood draw after his OWI arrest, but a week later wrote the State Hygiene Lab saying he was revoking his consent to the collection and testing of his blood. The authorities tested the blood anyway. Lane’s challenge to the test result is foreclosed by State v. Randall, 2019 WI 80, 387 Wis. 2d 744, 930 N.W.2d 223.

State v. Courtney C. Brown, 2019 WI App 34, petition for review granted 10/15/19; case activity (including links to briefs)

Issues (petition for review)

Whether police unlawfully extended a noncriminal traffic stop beyond its initial purpose?

State v. Jamie Ellin Grimm, 2019AP789-Cr, District 2, 10/16/19 (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication), case activity (including briefs)

When a driver approaches an oncoming car within 500 feet,  §347.12(1)(a) requires her to “dim, depress or tilt” her high beams so that “glaring rays” aren’t directed into the eyes of the approaching driver. It is undisputed that Grimm flashed her beams within 500 feet of an approaching squad car.

State v. Michael R. McGinnis, 2018AP1388-CR, District 3, 10/8/19 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

An officer investigating a hit-and-run at the Happy Hollow Tavern unlawfully pushed his way into McGinnis’s home and then arrested him. The state concedes the officer’s entry was unlawful, so the evidence and statements police obtained while in McGinnis’s home must be suppressed. But the arrest of McGinnis was supported by probable cause, so the evidence obtained after the arrest is admissible.

State v. Deangelo Tubbs, 2019AP644, 10/1/19, District 1 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Police stopped Tubbs’s car, which lacked a front license plate. The officer who approached the vehicle saw a firearm in the car and immediately opened the door and told Tubbs to show his hands. (Tubbs had a concealed-carry permit.) On opening the door, the officer said, he smelled unburned marijuana and noted a digital scale on the floorboard. The officer then searched the car and found a jar containing weed.

State v. Garrett German, 2018AP78, 9/24/19, District 3 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Facebook alerted law enforcement that German’s account had uploaded images that “appeared to depict child pornography.” Eventually, an who had looked at the images submitted a warrant application averring that each one did “appear to be an image of child pornography.” Police executing the warrant did, in fact, find child pornography. Was the bare allegation that the images were child pornography (rather than an attachment with the actual images or at least a description of what they showed) good enough to supply probable cause to the warrant-issuing magistrate?

State v. Jesse J. Jennerjohn, 2018AP1762, 9/24/19, District 3 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Just last week we had Kettlewell, where the court of appeals rejected the state’s claim that the officers who entered a suspected drunk driver’s home were performing a legitimate community-caretaker search because he might have been injured. Here, we have the police going into a home whose occupant they’ve already arrested outside; the court rejects as merely speculative the state’s argument that someone else might have needed assistance inside, or that firearms in the home might have posed a danger. We also get this gem: “The court did not explain why the fact that Jennerjohn was holding a piece of venison when he came out of his residence supported an objectively reasonable basis for the officers to believe it was necessary to search his residence in order to protect themselves or others.” (¶40).