United States v. Walker, No. 18-3729 (2d Cir. 2020)
Annotate this Case
The Second Circuit reversed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress statements made and narcotics discovered during a search incident to arrest. The court held that the officers lacked an objectively reasonable belief of legal wrongdoing to justify stopping defendant. In this case, the officers stopped defendant on the basis of a photograph that provided little meaningful identifying information to the police besides the race of a suspect. Consequently, the police lacked specific and articulable facts giving rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal wrongdoing.
The court further held that the resultant taint of illegality was not purged by the officers' subsequent discovery of an unrelated arrest warrant; the search of defendant yielding the narcotics and statements at issue was insufficiently attenuated from the unconstitutional stop; any suspicion, reasonable or otherwise, would have dissipated when the officers approached defendant and could see up close that he did not resemble the photographed suspect; and the subsequent search for outstanding warrants was thus purposeful and flagrant conduct.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.