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Criminal Procedure Keyed to Dressler
Whren v. United States
Citation:
517 U.S. 806, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89.Facts
Officers were patrolling a “high drug area” of the city in an unmarked car. They passed a truck with temporary license plates and youthful occupants. The truck stopped at an intersection for an unusually long time. When the police car made a U-turn in order to head back toward the truck, the truck turned suddenly to its right, without signaling, and sped off.
The police pulled the truck over. When an officer went to the driver’s window, he immediately observed two large plastic bags of what appeared to be crack cocaine in the defendant’s hands. The occupants were arrested, and several types of illegal drugs were retrieved from the vehicle.
The defendant challenged the legality of the stop and resulting seizure, arguing that the stop had not been justified by probable cause to believe that the defendants were engaged in illegal drug-dealing activity and that the asserted ground for approaching the vehicle (to give the driver a warning concerning traffic violations) was pretextual. The district court rejected this argument and he was convicted.
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