So, I went and read the opinion of the Court, and its ruling makes a little more sense to me now.

Everyone agreed that the arrest was proper, that the search was proper, and that discovering the contraband was proper. The only argument was whether or not using the knife was proper, and then what the recourse should be if it is found not to be.

They likened the search to a "strip search", and as crazy at that sounds, the case law cited in the opinion seems to support that. A "strip search" comes with a bit of extra scrutiny, and even though I think it shouldn't have mattered in this case, they seemed to give a bit of weight to it as they were saying it didn't matter, also. Weird.

They then found that using the knife was unreasonable because it could have caused "fear or humiliation" to the suspect, two things that are somewhat banned by the "strip search" rules.

Assuming they were correct in finding the "strip search" caused unreasonable "fear or humiliation", the next thing to do would be to ferret out what the recourse for this should be.

The suspect, of course, argued that the recourse should be throwing out the evidence found by the search, the drugs, which would effectively end the case since it's hard to convict him of possession with intent to distribute if there is no evidence of any drugs in the record.

This is usually the last recourse granted by the Court, and they use rulings like the "but for" rule ("but for" the unreasonable search, the drugs would not have been found) or the "causal connection" rule (there is a direct causal connection between the unreasonable search and the discovery of the contraband) to let the bad search slide.

In this case, I see that the "but for" rule should allow the evidence in anyway...as they already had discovered the drugs before employing the knife...and everyone already agreed that the search was reasonable up to the point where the knife was used. This should equally apply to the "causal connection" rule, and the drugs were already discovered...and when they got back to the station and legally strip searched him before sending him off to the pokey, they'd have found the drugs there, too.

The Court ignored those arguments and said that the prosecutor failed to bring them up during the Motion to Suppress at trial, and the general rule is that if you fail to put your argument on the record, you can't argue it later on appeal.

That's all fine and good...if there was a reason to bring them up. There may not have been in this case, since the Prosecutor won on the motion on grounds that the search was 'reasonable', he may not have brought up alternative ways to win the argument...he may not have had to.

The Court went on to say that the District Judge erred by not granting the motion and throwing out the evidence, and pretty much sealed the deal right there. I think they should have tossed it back and let the District Court decide if it should be suppressed or not.

I'd be surprised if the State didn't apply to the Supreme Court to hear this one...but I'd be surprised if they took it, too, unless there were several other cases along these lines out there besides this one.

There's a good dissent written in this case, and it's more in line with my thinking on it.

Here's the opinion:

http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/104256.P.pdf

Fish on...

Todd