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CA1: Asking defendant to step out of motel room was not a seizure; even if it was, it was justified by officer safety

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Asking the defendant to step out of a motel room so he could be questioned about a crime was not a seizure. United States v. Parker, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 24215 (1st Cir. November 26, 2008): The closest precedent in our circuit is United States v. Beaudoin, 362 F.3d 60, 69-70 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 979, 125 S. Ct. 484, 160 L. Ed. 2d 357 (2004), vacated on other grounds sub. nom. Champagne v. United States, 543 U.S. 1102, 125 S. Ct. 1025, 160 L. Ed. 2d 1009 (2005). In Beaudoin, we held (albeit by a divided vote) that no warrant was required for a reasonable police request that the suspect step out of his hotel room. We deemed the intrusion on privacy of such a direction to be real but modest, especially when weighed against the risk to police officers, and stressed the analogy to the Terry stop cases allowing investigative stops on the street...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on November 30, 2008 (boomark / email).