C&P Wins Fourth Amendment Appeal

Yesterday, Clinton & Peed’s Greg Lipper won an appellate victory before the D.C. Court of Appeals, which reversed our client’s drug conviction and vacated two others; the Court remanded the case for further proceedings to address the client’s argument that the police searched and seized him in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.

In February 2016, police officers stopped our client inside an apartment building. After being asked if the officers could search his person, our client first responded “Yes,” but then immediately stopped the officer after he reached into our client’s pocket; the police then handcuffed our client and seized the contents of his pocket. The trial court denied the motion to suppress that evidence, on the ground that the client had never revoked consent to be searched. And before jury deliberations, the trial court rejected the argument that the drug possession charge merged with one of the possession-with-intent-to-distribute charges.

In a published opinion, the Court of appeals reversed one conviction entirely, vacated the two others, and remanded the case for additional proceedings. As to the former, the Court held that the possession charge merged with the distribution charge. As to the latter, the Court held that our client had unambiguously revoked consent to be searched before the police seized the contents of his pocket. The case was remanded for the trial court to consider other arguments related to the constitutionality of the search and seizure.

Clinton & Peed represents criminal defendants, including indigent defendants in court-appointed cases, at trial and on appeal in both state and federal courts.