Affiliations

• United States v. Price

  District Court, E.D. Arkansas · 1977-12-07

  In United States v. Price, the court considered a defendant's motion to suppress evidence seized from his mobile home during execution of a valid search warrant for marijuana and currency. Officers arrested an associate, approached the home at night, pushed the associate inside upon the door opening, and entered with guns drawn without first announcing their identity, authority, or purpose. The court ruled that this method of entry violated the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement, as officers must generally announce before entering a private premises unless exigent circumstances apply, a standard drawn from precedents such as Ker v. California and the principles underlying 18 U.S.C. § 3109. Evidence obtained after the unlawful entry, including a sawed-off shotgun leading to a federal firearms charge, was therefore inadmissible.

  criminal lawprocedure

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• United States v. Hastings

  District Court, E.D. Arkansas · 1977-08-23 · cited 10×

  The case involved federal indictments charging multiple defendants with interstate transportation and receipt of stolen goods, such as an air compressor and a truckload of tires. The Department of Justice moved under Rule 48(a) to dismiss the prosecutions, arguing that local law enforcement tactics, including the use of an informant with a questionable background, violated fundamental fairness under the Fifth Amendment. The court examined the extent of its supervisory role over such dismissals, balancing executive discretion in prosecutions against judicial responsibility to safeguard the public interest in fair criminal justice. It concluded that while the executive branch is presumptively best positioned to decide on termination, the court may require factual and legal support for the motion and reject it if sought in bad faith or on grounds unsupported by law or facts, consistent with separation of powers principles.

  criminal lawprocedurefederal power

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• Simpson v. Weeks

  District Court, E.D. Arkansas · 1977-02-28 · cited 3×

  This case is a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 brought by Lt. Walter Simpson of the Little Rock Police Department against Chief Gale Weeks, Lt. Forrest Parkman, and former Assistant Chief John Terry. Simpson alleged that the defendants harassed and punished him, harming his career, after wrongly suspecting that he had provided information to plaintiffs' attorneys in another federal case (Phillips v. Weeks) while under subpoena as a witness. The court found that Simpson possessed an unfettered right to confer with attorneys as a subpoenaed witness and that the defendants' actions constituted misuse of authority driven by a desire to ruin his career. It awarded compensatory damages plus punitive damages of $3,000 against Weeks, $2,000 against Terry, and $1,000 against Parkman.

  civil rights

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