U.S. v. Paxton

Federal 7th Circuit Court
Criminal Court
Fourth Amendment
Citation
Case Number: 
Nos. 14-2913 & 15-1294 Cons.
Decision Date: 
February 17, 2017
Federal District: 
N.D. Ill., E. Div.
Holding: 
Reversed and dismissed in part

In prosecution on conspiracy to commit robbery and Hobbs Act charges, Dist. Ct. erred in granting defendants’ motion to suppress certain statements they made after their arrest while sitting in rear seat of police van, where said statements were recorded without their knowledge. Defendants had no reasonable expectation of conversational privacy while seated within clearly-marked police van. As such, police interception and recording of defendants’ conversation in police van did not constitute search for purposes of 4th Amendment. Ct. of Appeals further noted that govt. had legitimate reasons consistent with public interest for monitoring individuals it has taken into custody that precluded finding that defendants had reasonable subjective expectations of privacy regarding their conversations within police van.