United States Ninth Circuit

In a case addressing the Fourth Amendment's limits on the use of trickery and force in conducting seizures, arising from circumstances in which DEA agents decided to stage an accident with defendant's car, a theft of the car, and a police chase, in order to seize drugs in the car without tipping off conspirators, suppression of the evidence obtained from the vehicle is reversed and remanded where the agents' manner of executing the seizure was constitutional.

Appellate Information

• Argued 04/09/2007
• Decided 06/08/2007
• Published 06/08/2007

Judges

• Before:  ALEX KOZINSKI, RAYMOND C. FISHER and RICHARD C. TALLMAN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• James A. McDevitt, United States Attorney, and Russell E. Smoot, Assistant United States Attorney, Spokane, WA, for the plaintiff-appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• James E. Egan, Kennewick, WA, for the defendant-appellee.