Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Fourth Amendment

Criminal Law

: Fourth Amendment

CA7: Permitting gov't to reopen suppression issue is discretionary

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

Following other circuits, the Seventh Circuit holds that permitting the government to reopen a suppression hearing is discretionary. United States v. Ozuna, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 7034 (7th Cir. April 6, 2009): This court has generally given wide latitude to district courts to reopen suppression hearings for consideration of newly obtained evidence. See, e.g., United States v. Scott, 19 F.3d 1238, 1243 (7th Cir. 1994); United States v. Duran, 957 F.2d 499, 505-06 (7th Cir. 1992). Ozuna claims that this same latitude is not warranted where the evidence was available at the time of the previous hearing. In fact, he argues that the government should never be allowed to supplement a suppression hearing unless the evidence is newly acquired. He asserts that because the government could have subjected the document to handwriting analysis prior to the first hearing, it should not have been allowed to present this evidence at the second hearing...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on April 08, 2009 (boomark / email).