Articles Posted in Search and Seizure

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In an April 2023 case before an Arizona court of appeals, the defendant took issue with a police officer’s Miranda warnings when he was arrested and charged. The defendant was originally accused of theft of property, burglary, and theft of a means of transportation. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced, and he appealed promptly. Reviewing the officer’s Miranda warnings on the day of the arrest, the higher court ultimately denied the defendant’s appeal and sustained the original convictions.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant was accused of stealing a woman’s car after security footage caught him driving away from a fitness center in the vehicle. The woman worked at the fitness center, and she had hung her keys and lanyard on a hook inside the gym. The defendant later took the keys without permission, drove away, and kept the car at a neighbor’s house nearby.

After reviewing the security footage, officers arrived at the defendant’s house. They found the car, arrested the defendant, and brought him in for questioning. The officers gave the defendant Miranda warnings, which are required under the constitution to inform criminal defendants that they have the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney.

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An area of criminal law that ordinary Americans are most familiar with involves Miranda rights. A defendant’s Miranda rights are protected by the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the government from forcing anyone to testify against themselves or be coerced into making incriminating statements to law enforcement officers. Generally speaking, the law requires police officers to verbally give Miranda warnings before questioning a defendant who has been taken into custody. If a police officer obtains a confession from an in-custody suspect without giving the proper Miranda warnings first, the confession can be kept out of court. These protections are not absolute, however, as evidenced by a recent Arizona Court of Appeals decision that affirmed a defendant’s conviction even though police obtained statements from him in violation of Miranda.

According to the facts discussed in the appellate opinion, the defendant was riding an unregistered motorcycle when police attempted to stop him. The defendant attempted to flee the pursuing officers when he crashed his motorcycle into a wall and was apprehended. Shortly after the crash, the defendant told the police that he didn’t stop because he didn’t want the motorcycle to be impounded. The defendant was arrested and charged with unlawful flight from a law enforcement vehicle. During later questioning, the defendant was given his Miranda rights and again confessed to the crime of fleeing from the police.

Before trial, the defendant’s counsel attempted to suppress his statements to police, arguing that the defendant was in custody after the crash and that he was questioned by police without hearing his Miranda rights, and the violation warranted the evidence’s suppression. The trial court ruled against the defendant and ultimately convicted him as charged. The defendant appealed the ruling to the Arizona Court of Appeals, pressing the Miranda issue further.

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In a recent case coming out of an Arizona court, the defendant appealed his conviction for resisting arrest. Even though the defendant did not contest that he had physically resisted the officers when they tried to arrest him, he argued on appeal that the entire case should have been dismissed because of the illegal acts committed by the arresting agency. The court denied the defendant’s appeal, and his conviction was affirmed.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, officers had an arrest warrant on the defendant based on suspicion of drug trafficking. The officers located the defendant and followed him into a parking lot, surrounding his vehicle. The defendant immediately locked himself in the car and ignored the officers’ orders to exit. After a few moments, the defendant picked up an ax and struck the K-9 dog that officers sent in to try and remove him from the vehicle.

When the defendant eventually exited the car, he ignored orders from the officers and put his hands underneath him to avoid giving officers control of his arms or hands. The officers used a taser on the defendant, and they eventually put him in handcuffs. After the arrest, the officers found bags of methamphetamine on his person.

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In a recent opinion from an Arizona court, the defendant unsuccessfully argued that his motion to suppress incriminating evidence was unfairly denied. At trial, the defendant had been found guilty of transportation of a narcotic drug for sale and possession of drug paraphernalia. On appeal, he argued that the original traffic stop leading to his charges was unreasonable and that it was an infringement on his privacy rights. The court disagreed, affirming the defendant’s convictions and sentence.

The Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, the defendant was pulled over in December 2019 when he was driving on the highway. Originally, the police officer who pulled the defendant over noticed his car because the defendant made an “odd gesture” and because the officer noticed an object in the windshield. After a few minutes, the defendant began driving through a dirt parking lot, over a curb, and into the parking lot of a nearby casino. Suspicious, the officer followed the defendant into the casino, approached him, and said he was conducting an investigatory stop for improper material on his windshield.

The officer checked the defendant’s license and registration, which led him to the realization that the defendant’s license was suspended. The officer called back up to the scene, including a unit of dogs to help him investigate. One dog sniffed the air around the defendant’s truck and led the officer to three packages of fentanyl. The defendant was indicted, and he moved to suppress the evidence from the traffic stop. The trial court denied his motion to suppress.

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In a recent opinion from an Arizona court, the defendant’s motion to suppress incriminating evidence was denied. After having been found guilty of illegally possessing firearms, the defendant argued in his appeal that the state trooper who stopped him and found his gun had no right to pull him over in the first place. The court disagreed, saying that because the defendant had extensively violated traffic laws, there was ample reason for the trooper to conduct the traffic stop that eventually led to the trooper finding incriminating evidence.

Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, an Arizona State Trooper pulled the defendant over for failing to remain within a traffic lane. Approaching the vehicle, the officer asked the defendant if he had any weapons in the vehicle; the defendant denied having any firearms in his car, but the officer immediately saw and seized an AR-15 pistol from near the front driver’s seat. At the time of the traffic stop, the defendant was prohibited from possessing weapons as a condition of his felony probation. His fingerprint was later found on the pistol.

At trial, the government found the defendant guilty of possessing a firearm while being a prohibited possessor and of failing to accurately answer the trooper’s questions regarding a concealed firearm.

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The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution grant persons accused of crimes the right to remain silent in the face of police questioning. The landmark U.S. Supreme Court case of Miranda vs. Arizona has defined this constitutional right by requiring police to give an in-custody suspect Miranda warnings before questioning them about alleged criminal activity. Miranda warnings instruct suspects that they do not need to answer any police questions and that any responses they give can be used as evidence against them if they face criminal charges. The law concerning a suspect’s Miranda rights is not always cut and dry, however, and statements given after a valid Miranda warning still may be inadmissible under some circumstances. The Arizona Court of Appeals recently ruled on an appeal filed by a defendant who alleged that statements he made to police after he was given his Miranda warnings should not have been admitted at his attempted murder trial.

The defendant from the recently decided appeal was stopped by police for his alleged involvement in a shootout with police that had occurred earlier in the day of his arrest. The defendant was injured with a gunshot wound at the time of his arrest and he was taken to the hospital for treatment under police supervision. According to the facts discussed in the appellate opinion, the defendant engaged in “small talk” with the police officers while he was at the hospital before he was given any Miranda warnings, and he made incriminating statements.

After the defendant’s condition was stabilized and he was released from the hospital, he was placed under arrest for attempted murder. After his arrest, the defendant was questioned by another officer, who read him his Miranda rights. During this second round of questioning, the defendant made more incriminating statements. At trial, the defiant challenged the admission of both rounds of statements. The trial court suppressed the first round of statements but admitted the second round because the defendant had been read his Miranda rights before making them. A jury ultimately convicted the defendant of attempted murder.

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In a unanimous decision coming from the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court held that a police officer’s pursuit of a fleeing misdemeanor suspect does not always qualify as an exigent or demanding circumstance that would otherwise justify a police officer’s warrantless entry into a home. This decision strengthens Fourth Amendment protections for individuals throughout the country by limiting, to a certain extent, the special circumstances that allow an officer to enter a home without a warrant.

The Facts of the Case

After a highway patrol officer observed loud music coming from a parked car, and the driver of the car honking the horn multiple times despite there being no other vehicles around, the officer decided to follow the vehicle once it began moving. After following the vehicle for several blocks, the officer turned on his overhead lights, but the driver of the vehicle failed to pull over. The driver turned into his driveway and pulled into his garage. The officer interrupted the closing garage door and asked the driver if he had noticed that the officer turned on his overhead lights. The driver replied that he had not, and was charged with two vehicle code misdemeanors.

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Recently, a state appellate court issued an opinion in an Arizona drug case involving the defendant’s motion to suppress hundreds of pounds of marijuana found in his vehicle. Ultimately, the court found that the police officer unnecessarily and unjustifiably extended the duration of the traffic stop. Thus, the court held that the defendant was illegally seized and any evidence recovered as a result of the search could not be used at trial.

The Facts of the Case

According to the court’s opinion, a state trooper observed the defendant following another vehicle too closely on Interstate 40. The trooper initiated a traffic stop, obtaining the defendant’s information. The trooper then asked the defendant to exit his car and sit in the front seat of the patrol vehicle.

At this point, the trooper’s drug-detection dog, which was seated directly behind the defendant, began barking. In response, the defendant became nervous; however, he continued to answer the trooper’s routine questions. The trooper verified the information provided by the defendant and issued a traffic citation.

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In a recently decided case in an Arizona court, the court denied a defendant’s motion to suppress physical evidence because of the defendant’s lack of legitimate expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. This case highlights the complicated nature of searches and seizures under the law and the importance of having an experienced criminal law attorney to assist in your defense.

The Facts of the Case

According to the opinion, an eight-month pregnant woman was driving in her car with her daughter when the driver of another vehicle ran her off the road as she attempted to merge into a new lane. The husband of the pregnant woman was driving directly behind his wife and witnessed the driver of the other vehicle cause his wife to almost hit a parked vehicle. As a result, the husband followed behind the other vehicle and yelled to the driver about running his wife off the road. The defendant, who was a passenger in the other car, fired a gun at the husband’s vehicle three times which caused a flat tire.

The husband and wife reported the incident to the police and reported the other car’s location after the pair followed the defendant. The defendant was dropped off at a community college while carrying two bags and dropped one of the bags in one of the lockers in a locker room. After checking the school’s surveillance video, a police officer searched the locker room. In a locker with mesh-like sides, the officer eventually found a similar-looking bag. The officer found the gun used in the shooting. The defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence found in the locker, arguing that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated due to the warrantless search of the locker. The lower court denied the motion. Despite arguing that his actions were a form of self-defense and defense of others in the car, the defendant was found guilty.

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In the state of Arizona, criminal defendants can request that the court excludes from trial certain evidence obtained in violation of a defendant’s rights. If you have been charged with committing a crime in Arizona, you may file a motion to suppress physical evidence if you believe specific rights granted from either the United States Constitution, the state constitution, or a statute are violated. Filing a motion to suppress can serve as an essential tool for disputing charges as a defendant.

For example, if police officials obtain evidence in violation of a criminal defendant’s Miranda rights, successfully requesting suppression of any evidence prior to trial would bar the prosecution from using it against the defendant once the trial commences. Another example is if a police officer illegally arrests you without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.

If this evidence turns out to be important for the prosecution’s case and if the motion to suppress is successfully granted by the court, the exclusion of certain evidence could lead to a dismissal of the charges against the defendant. For example, if you are able to suppress a gun in an Arizona weapons case, the prosecution cannot proceed without the evidence, meaning they will often drop the case against you.

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