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484 F.2d 89

Docket No. 73-1632.

United States v. Luckett

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided Aug. 17, 1973.

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1973-08-17

2 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“[b]ecause they had no reasonable grounds to be suspicious that there might be a warrant outstanding against him, this continued detention was unreasonable.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including United States v. Burleson, Kelby R. Gordon v. United States

“only the time necessary to obtain satisfactory identification from the violator and to execute a traffic citation”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including United States v. Burleson, Pierce v. Multnomah County

Relies on Terry v. Ohio · United States v. Welp · United States v. Hunter

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by (per_curiam) · Decided 1973-08-17

How this case has been cited

Cited by 55 later decisions — most recently June 2023 · most notably Pierce v. Multnomah County (1996), Wilson v. State (1994)

24 federal appellate · 1 district · 17 state decisions — followed in 10 states

150197319801990200020102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1*90William D. Keller, U. S. Atty., Eric A. Nobles, Gregory C. Glynn, Asst. U. S. Attys., Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiff-appellant.

¶2John K. Van De Kamp, Federal Public Defender, Gail M. Title, Deputy Federal Public Defender, Los Angeles, Cal., for defendant-appellee.

¶3Before BROWNING and ELY, Circuit Judges, and ZIRPOLI, District Judge.*

¶5OPINION

¶6PER CURIAM:

¶7The government appeals from an order of the district court granting appel-lee’s motion to suppress evidence. The district court relied upon several grounds in granting the motion. Because we agree that the police improperly held appellee until a warrant check could be run, we do not reach the other issues raised by the subsequent events.

¶8At approximately 12:30 a. m.,' in the early morning of a Saturday, two city police officers saw appellee cross a street in Gardena, California, against the traffic light. The officers drove up to him and waved him to the car. He responded immediately and, after being questioned about the possible jaywalking violation, he readily admitted his error. At the request of one of the officers, he then produced five pieces of identification in the name of Peter Richard Schily. Although the identification produced did not include a driver’s license, appellee explained that this was because he could not drive. The officer accepted the identification and executed a traffic citation. Throughout this time appellee had been cooperative and had done nothing to arouse particular suspicion. Nevertheless, rather than release appellee at this point, the officers continued to detain him in order to run a warrant check on the name he gave. This was done for the sole reason that he lacked a driver’s license.1 The warrant check produced the information that there was an outstanding traffic warrant against Peter Richard Schily, and, following a subsequent arrest and search, a package of counterfeit United States Postal Money Orders was found in appellee’s pocket.

¶9Once the police officers required appellee to come to the police car, he was “seized,” and therefore, the Fourth Amendment required that the length and scope of the detention be “ ‘strictly tied to and justified by’ the circumstances which rendered its initiation permissible.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, *9116, 19, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1878, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). This standard permits a police officer to detain an individual stopped for jaywalking only the time necessary to obtain satisfactory identification from the violator and to execute a traffic citation. Cf. United States v. Hunter, 471 F.2d 6, 7 (9th Cir. 1972). Here the police had completed both these functions, but they continued to detain appellee for the purpose of running a warrant check. Because they had no reasonable grounds to be suspicious that there might be a warrant outstanding against him, this continued detention was unreasonable, and its fruits, therefore, were properly suppressed by the district court.

¶10Affirmed.

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