US v. Critchfield: Critchfield was walking down an alley in Bridgeport, West Virginia, when he caught the eye of a postal inspector who was leaving his house. The inspector through Critchfield looked suspicious (he thought “Critchfield had an ‘Oh, no, I’m caught’ look on his face”) and kept an eye on him, noticing that his sweatshirt “had what appeared to be something very heavy in it, so heavy that it was falling down below his crotch.” Critchfield also kept looking back over his shoulder at the inspector. The inspector called the local police (with whom he’d worked on prior investigations) and relayed this information. Two officers arrived, stopped Critchfield, and recovered a gun and some pills from his sweatshirt pocket. Critchfield unsuccessfully moved to suppress that evidence and eventually pleaded guilty to being a drug user in possession of a firearm.
On appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed the denial of Critchfield’s motion to suppress. In doing so, the court emphasized both the need for reasonable suspicion to be articulable and for it to be particularized to support a stop. Noting that the two officers who stopped Critchfield didn’t see anything suspicion, so they were relying entirely on the observations from the postal inspector. The court concluded that those observations were not enough to generate reasonable suspicion, as they did not suggest that he had been involved in a theft (the offense being investigated). The court noted that Critchfield’s evasive behavior meant less here than it might if he’d had reason to know that the inspector was a law enforcement officer. Further, there was no testimony as to why, specifically, the nature of the pocket of Critchfield’s sweatshirt was suspicious of criminal activity.
Congrats to the NDWV Defender office on the victory!
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