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12-26-2011, 03:15 PM #1
Court backs up ABQ officer's search
kasa.com
Associated Press
Published : Monday, 26 Dec 2011, 2:15 PM MST
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - An appeals court has backed up an Albuquerque police officer's search of an illegal immigrant during a routine traffic stop, disagreeing with attorneys who argued that the lawman's search went too far.
At issue was Officer Joe Moreno's search of suspect Ivan Rochin last January.
The Albuquerque Journal reports that Moreno pulled Rochin over for having a suspended car registration, did a pat-down and felt a bulge in Rochin's pants pocket that he asked Rochin to identify.
When Rochin refused, Moreno reached in his pocket and found a glass pipe and marijuana. He also found a gun inside Rochin's car. Rochin was later charged in federal court with being an alien in possession of a firearm and ammunition.
Judge James Browning ruled that Moreno had reasonable suspicion to believe that Rochin was armed and dangerous at the beginning of the pat-down and refused to grant a request by the defense not to allow prosecutors to use the results of Moreno's search during trial.
Rochin's attorney, Brian Pori, didn't contest the initial stop, only the continued search of Rochin's pockets and appealed the case to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The court issued an opinion on Dec. 13 upholding Moreno's decision and Rochin's conviction, saying that "routine" traffic stops often are anything but that and that officers are killed after pulling someone over for even minor infractions.
"The Fourth Amendment is not a game of blind man's bluff," Appeals Court Judge Neil Gorsuch wrote in response to the defense argument that an officer may not take objects from a suspect's pockets when he had no idea what they were. "It doesn't require an officer to risk his safety or the safety of those nearby while he fishes around in a suspect's pockets until he can correctly guess the identity and risks association with an unknown object."
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Information from: Albuquerque Journal
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